


As certain dark things are to be loved

by thursdayknight



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Billy Hargrove Has PTSD, Billy Hargrove Tries to Be a Better Sibling, Billy and Max figure their shit out, Billy and Robin are friends, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Blood, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Brother/Sister Relationship, Canon Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Dumb teenagers being dumb, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Found Family, Friendship, Gay Billy Hargrove, Good Sibling Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Hurt/Comfort, Internalized Homophobia, Lesbian Robin Buckley, M/M, Minor Character Death, Miscommunication, Mystery, POV Alternating, Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler, Porn, Post Season 3, Robin is a badass, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Steve Harrington Has Bad Parents, Steve Harrington Has PTSD, Steve has a big Bisexual Panic, Swearing, Whump, lots of music references, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2020-09-26 03:21:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 86,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20382835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thursdayknight/pseuds/thursdayknight
Summary: There aren't a lot of things Steve is absolutely certain of, but he's pretty sure people who die are supposed to stay dead.So why is Billy Hargrove suddenly sitting in the back seat of his car like he belongs there?





	1. If you forget me

_Friday, November 1st, 1985 _

Steve and Robin are driving around in his car and he's singing along loudly to Billy Joel to piss her off and to get her to stop picking at him for not enjoying the latest terrible, old people film she demanded he watch - _Casablanca._ It's a film Steve is certain he will never understand the point of but instead of trying to explain this to her for the tenth time this afternoon alone he reaches for the volume dial on the radio, cranks it up and makes sure his voice cracks and goes extra pitchy on the chorus. 

Then, bam! It happens out of nowhere. A hand snakes out from the backseat and turns the radio back down. A voice belonging to a guy Steve's pretty sure is dead says, "Stop singing or I swear to god I will find a way to crash this car from the backseat."

Steve jerks his head around so fast he almost gives himself whiplash. Billy Hargrove is sitting in the backseat of his car like he belongs there, like he's always been there, like they're... friends?

Robin screams and Steve almost joins her, is about to start screaming about there being a dead guy in the backseat of his car when he starts to feel said car drifting to the left. Robin's hands are over his in an instant, twisting the steering wheel and jerking the car back towards the right.

"Jesus Christ, Harrington! Watch the road!" she yells.

He ducks, fully expecting her to smack him across the back of the head but she doesn't. Billy does.

Steve turns back around to face the road but not before catching Billy grinning at him like a jackass, but a human jackass and not, you know, a demon-controlled psycho murderer. It makes no sense. 

He looks over at Robin to gauge her reaction to all this, to see if she can even see the dead guy in the backseat or if all the things he's seen have just finally driven him mad. She doesn't seem to think there's anything wrong so for a moment he starts to think the worst has happened, that he's actually, really and truly lost it.

"Just for the record," Billy says, leaning so far forward he's whispering in Steve's ear, his hair brushing Steve's shoulder and making him shiver, "I didn't actually want you to crash the car."

"I've officially gone insane," Steve says, just as Robin twists in her seat and punches Billy in the shoulder.

"Billy, knock it off," she admonishes, though there's no heat behind it. Actually, if anything she sounds a little fond and really? Steve can't take it. Like really. He can't take it, whatever it is. Whatever this is.

Demodogs he can handle. Being tortured by Russian spies he can handle. Giant, people-eating monsters from the Hell they call the Upside Down he can handle. Being constantly bothered by Dustin about how him and Robin should be together and not being able to tell him why he's entirely barking up the wrong tree there he can handle, but this? This is too weird. 

No, scratch that. This is too _normal. _

"Steve, breathe." Robin nudges his shoulder with her long, bony finger and smiles at him like the world hasn't just flipped itself over.

He tries his best to smile back, to fake it until he can get home and try to figure this out, but his smile comes out looking like a cheap, plastic imitation of the real thing and he knows it. So does Robin.

"I'd really rather not die today, please pull over and freak out once the car has stopped," Billy drawls, words coming out sounding bored with an undercurrent of irritated, but Steve peeks at the rearview mirror and catches a stormy look crossing Billy's face and he decides he doesn't want to know the why behind the look before straightening his shoulders and adjusting his grip on the steering wheel.

_ I can do this, _ he thinks, _ I can deal with this. I will. _

"No, I'm fine," he says, determined as he can manage for someone whose hands won't stop shaking. 

"Well, if you're sure," Billy says, sounding like he believes that's anything but the truth. 

The song on the radio switches to some awful Prince song and Steve rolls his eyes. 

"How am I friends with you?" he mutters, not so much expecting a response as much as unable to avoid saying it out loud. 

Robin shrugs and makes a face like this is something he's said before and probably often. She responds with, "Well, you know, losers like us have to stick together." 

It sounds like something she's probably said before, too and there's something about the way she says "losers" like that isn't quite the word she really means.

He wants to ask her about it but he's almost certain Billy wouldn't handle this particular question well, so he files it away for later. 

The rest of the drive is filled with Billy glaring out at the trees like they've personally offended him somehow, Robin pretending like she's not constantly sneaking worried glances at Steve and Steve pretending like the death grip he's got on the steering wheel is totally normal and not at all a cause for concern. Like there isn't a dead guy in his backseat. 

He drops off Robin and Billy as soon as he possibly can and heads home fully intending to go straight to bed (regardless of the fact that it's still only six p.m.) and pretend that whatever the fuck is happening _ isn't_.

His plans, however, are interrupted by the static of his walkie-talkie going off the second he steps into his bedroom. 

"Steve?" Dustin's slightly garbled voice crackles. "Steve, I am having a massive hair emergency and you have to help me!" 

Steve dives on to the bed and scoops the walkie-talkie up off the floor. He hits the talk button just as Dustin starts moaning about how his hair won't sit right and no amount of product is doing anything to help. "Yeah, well, I am having an _ actual _emergency," Steve spits. 

He doesn't explain what the emergency is, though. He isn't sure he wants to. He isn't sure he even _ can_. 

"What's the emergency?" Dustin asks, suddenly all serious. It makes Steve happier than he's willing to admit. 

"I…" Steve panics. "I'll tell you tomorrow, okay? I can't over the radio."

He's chickening out, he knows he is, but he also knows he won't be able to talk about this without a few hours sleep and a few hours distance. Maybe some sunlight. And in person. In person would help.

"Milkshakes?" Dustin asks. 

"Milkshakes. I'll meet you at the diner at eleven."

"Over and out," Dustin says. 

Steve laughs. Dustin is the only one who says it, insists on it, really, and every single time Dustin says it, Steve can't help it - he laughs.

"Over and out, Steve," Dustin says again.

"Over and out, nerd," Steve says.

He hears Dustin groaning as he tosses the walkie-talkie off the bed to its' usual spot on the floor.

He lays down on his bed after that and closes his eyes, intending to sleep, but he can't. He winds up just restlessly tapping his fingers on his collarbone, on his hips, on his chest and feeling himself breathing just a little too much, a little too fast. 

And it's too quiet. The house is always quiet, but now it's like the quiet is kicking his brain into overdrive. 

It's too much.

So he does what he always does when it gets to be too much and he goes down to the living room to flop hopelessly on the couch, turn the tv on and to silently be grateful that his parents aren't home to bother him about it.

\---

When Steve wakes up, it's the kind of late where even the street lights are turned off and at first, he thinks he woke up because of the television - there's some obnoxious girl dressed in a polka dot dress singing really badly on a really tacky stage - but then he hears it.

There's a knock on the door. 

The sliding glass door just across the room from him. The one he always forgets to lock. Even now.

He feels his whole body go cold and he wants to freeze up, wants to pretend he's asleep and doesn't hear anything but instead, his instincts kick in and he rolls off of the couch and on to the floor. 

The knock sounds again as he reaches under the couch for the spare bat he'd stored there months ago but had never really needed. 

Before now.

There's another knock, louder this time, more insistent as his fingers wrap around the smooth and reassuring hard wood of his back-up bat. 

He squares his shoulders and stands up to look over at the door - behind it, he sees the outline of something that looks vaguely human-shaped and he chokes up his grip on the bat.

He slides the door open and steps back and what he hears is more surprising than if a monster had come to get him.

"Expecting someone else, pretty boy?"

Even if he hadn't recognized the voice, those last two words would have given it away. Billy. 

The person at the door, the person in the room with him now is _Billy. _Billy, who should be dead, Billy who - 

Steve takes two steps back and Billy prowls forwards, coming into the range of the glow of the television. It gives his skin this sickly glow that makes him look dead. It makes sweat break out on the back of Steve's neck and on his hands and - 

"Steve?" Billy asks and there's something to the rough edge in Billy's voice that sounds more like _concern_ than the aggression Steve has come to expect from him.

And since when does Billy call him Steve, anyway?

"You look like you're ready to fight a monster," Billy says, suddenly on him and crowding his space. He runs his fingers up Steve's arm like... like it means something. Like Steve is supposed to know _what_ it means. Only... he _doesn't. Not at all._

And it's freaking him _out._

So he takes a step back and he takes a deep breath but that only makes it worse, makes him aware of how he can smell Billy's sweat and his cheap cologne and the cigarette smoke lingering on his clothes. He chokes. Literally chokes, the breath spluttering from him in a way that has Billy grabbing him by the arm and leading him towards the couch.

And he can't help but notice that Billy doesn't trip, doesn't fumble and doesn't really even need to look where he's going. Like he's so intimately familiar with the room he can just keep his eyes locked on Steve and it's fine. He's fine.

Another thought occurs to Steve as Billy pushes him onto the couch.

Billy knocked on the living room door. Meaning he knew where he would be. 

But _why?_ _Why_ did he _know_ _that? _There's no reason that Steve can come up with that isn't terrifying.

But he doesn't seem to be the only one terrified as the next words out of Billy's mouth are, "Okay, you're scaring me." 

Billy kneels down in front of Steve and takes the bat out of his hands with a sort of delicacy that, before this moment, Steve would have sworn Billy Hargrove of all people was not capable of. He'd have even bet money on it.

Billy places the bat on the floor and then puts his hands on Steve's forearms.

He asks, "What's going on?" and there's this overwhelming element of concern to everything about him from the tone of his voice to the look on his face to the way his big, warm hands are squeezing Steve's forearms that has Steve breaking out in goosebumps and making him nervous from the pit of his stomach to the soles of his feet.

"What's going on?" Steve says, voice squeaking in the worst possible way. "What about you? What are you doing at my house this late at night? And what are you touching me for?"

He jerks his arms out of Billy's grasp with a grunt and folds his arms across his chest just to keep Billy from touching him again. He almost closes his eyes to avoid the way Billy is _staring_ at him.

Like Steve's stolen and killed his dog or something. 

"No," Billy says, like that's supposed to make any sort of sense. "No, no, no, no, no." 

"What?" Steve blurts out even though he very much does _not_ want to know.

"No," Billy says again. He gets to his feet. "Fuck this." 

He walks back to the sliding door and throws out, "And fuck him, too," just before he steps out and disappears into the night, leaving Steve almost no time to wonder who he means, let alone to ask.

After a minute, Steve gets up, closes and locks the door and sits back down on the couch. 

The show on tv switches from an obnoxious talent show to an infomercial. He doesn't change the channel, he doesn't move, he barely blinks and he _definitely_ doesn't sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: There is now a playlist full of the songs and bands mentioned in this fic! [Here it is on spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6dVCJauHlrAYIjOaMFBbXi?si=AsAU-iV5Rd-jXuuWnRmQbw) and[ on youtube](https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5F8vfeOWeSOcOzD0LL3om3mB_u2uyxu2).


	2. Something you can't name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I started this fic thinking I needed a break from this other fic I'm writing that's really dense and plotty but then this one wound up being even more so. Like there are timelines and dates and stuff. 
> 
> So, that's happened.

_ Saturday, November 2nd, 1985 _

Steve wakes up with the same crick in his neck he always gets from sleeping on the couch and he finds himself stumbling up the stairs towards his bedroom without really knowing why aside from that he feels _ weird _ and needs to see if anything in his room is _different._

Because everything _feels_ different, has felt different since last night, since Billy put his hands on his forearms and gave him that look that he still can't decipher the meaning of even though he's spent hours now trying to do exactly that. And still, all he was able to come up with was that something changed yesterday. 

This morning, all he can think is: what if Billy's not the only thing that's changed?

What if a lot of stuff is just suddenly different and in the panic of the moment he just didn't notice? 

He finds himself checking every corner of his bedroom to see what that change might be, but everything looks the same. The ugly brown and white wallpaper his parents picked out when he was eleven is still there. All of his posters look the same. His favorite polo is hung up in his closet along with his favorite jeans. Nothing's changed.

He's about to head back downstairs to do who knows what until it's time to go see Dustin, feeling at least a little assured that at least the whole, entire world hasn't flipped upside down and shattered when he remembers something he forgot to check - his hidden stash of Nancy photos. When they broke up, he tore through his room getting rid of anything to do with her except for the few pictures they'd taken this one time they went out to the lake together. Those he's kept hidden under the back corner of his mattress. What for, he isn't sure, but he's kept them. 

As he crosses the room, his stomach goes tight. What if those pictures are gone? 

What if… what if whatever's gone twisted means they were never together? The thought hadn't occurred to him until now, until just this second.

More than once he's wished that that particular relationship had just never happened. Because maybe if it never happened, maybe then it wouldn't hurt so much. Maybe then it wouldn't be so awkward every time he runs into her.

Now that he's facing the very real possibility of something similar to that actually being reality, he regrets every single time he wished for it. 

He puts his hands on the mattress and starts lifting, then stops as another thought enters his mind. If they didn't go out, then would she have dated Jonathan?

Maybe she wouldn't have. And maybe, then, he wouldn't have had to see that torn, crumpled look she's been wearing ever since the Byers' and Eleven left town. It's a similar look to the one he saw in the mirror for weeks after his own break up with her and he can't help but wonder, not for the first or last time, if her and Jonathan have split. He hasn't been brave enough to ask and no one's exactly told him - after all, it's really not any of his business.

He knows this, of course, he knows this but he can't help but be curious. Not that there's anything he could - or even really _would_ \- do with the information.

His fingers start to ache and he realizes he's been standing in front of his bed, fingers gripped tight to the edge of the mattress for… a while. Longer than he probably should have and definitely longer than he needs to.

"Okay, get a grip and get it over with," he mumbles to himself as he finally lifts the mattress all the way up. He lets out a breath and feels a flood of relief so strong his skin tingles as he catches sight of the small stack of photos hiding in the back corner of the bed frame. 

Shifting the mattress' weight to his shoulder he scrambles for the photos and yanks them free before standing and letting the mattress fall back into place with a comfortably loud '_thunk'_. He sinks to the floor to look through the pictures and isn't able to stop himself from smiling as he notices that they're all present and accounted for and exactly as he remembered them.

He gets to his feet, relieved and this time really feeling like maybe the world _ hasn't _ gone completely mad after all when one of the photos falls to the floor face first. Without thinking he bends to grab it and turns it over. 

It's a picture of him and Billy Hargrove standing in front of Billy's Camaro in what appears to be the school parking lot, arms wrapped around each other's shoulders with big, fat grins on their faces. 

He feels like he's jumped off the high dive at the public pool and unexpectedly crashed face first into cement. First, because what the fuck? Second, because he's looked at lots of pictures of himself in his life. He's Steve Harrington. There are dozens of photos of him in his yearbooks alone. But…

But he's never seen himself look as happy in any of them as he does in this picture with Billy freaking Hargrove.

He turns to head downstairs for a second time, still holding the photos and again he finds himself stopping short of the door. 

He doubles back and puts the photos of Nancy back under the bed, gets dressed, grabs his backpack with his work clothes and heads out of the house with the photo of him and Billy tucked safely in his back pocket. 

He isn't expecting his parents home for weeks, but somehow the idea of leaving this photo out somewhere they could find it feels… dangerous in a way he doesn't want to put a name to.

He's so spun out that he doesn't even bother to check the time until he's three blocks away and is waiting for the light at the crosswalk to turn green. It's ten minutes after ten, fifty minutes before he's supposed to meet up with Dustin at the diner that's become their usual meet-up spot after the mall closed down. It's not long enough to really do anything and not short enough to get a table at the diner and wait without ordering, but he drives downtown anyway and finds himself parked in front of the pharmacy. 

He sits for a minute before the silence in the car starts choking him and he has to get out, has to _ move,_ has to do _ something._

He walks into the pharmacy and wanders around, at a loss for anything better to do. He looks aimlessly at the magazine rack by the front, at all the pictures of the women on the covers with their glossy lips and ridiculously big hair and finds himself sneering at them. He looks at the toys on the shelves in the back and wonders if there really ever was a time he was young enough to have played with toys like that. 

And honestly? He isn't sure anymore. 

It feels like there's a million years between now and what, two years ago? Back before he knew his town existed on top of a portal to a Hell dimension. Thinking of anything farther back than that feels like maybe it just never even existed at all.

So who knows, really? Maybe child Steve, the one who loved coloring books and juice boxes and playing tag with Tommy never really even existed at all. Maybe this is all there's ever been. 

He doesn't know.

Aimlessly he walks into a random aisle, looking at nothing in particular and trying to think of something other than counting down the seconds until he can safely go get a booth in the diner without driving himself insane with the wait when he hears footsteps approaching. He looks over and sees Billy striding down the aisle and straight towards him. Billy waves and he panics like a deer in headlights. 

"Hey," Billy says, like it's nothing. Like they talk all the time, like this is normal. Like that whole thing last night just never happened. Like he didn't magically appear in Steve's car out of nowhere yesterday. 

"Hey," Steve says back, his throat suddenly scratchy and dry. He can feel sweat breaking out on his forehead and he suddenly doesn't know what to do with his hands and w_hat, the fuck._

Billy smiles at him and suddenly, it's familiar. The concern he'd been so obvious in showcasing last night is cloaked and shrouded in that thick layer of taunting bravado Billy always wore on the basketball court, the one he always used like a weapon to knock Steve down with. 

Billy comes in close and it's like a challenge, like he's challenging Steve to do something, to react, but Steve still doesn't get _ why. _

Billy leans in even closer - he's basically bracketing Steve with his body now - and for a second, Steve feels like his skin is on fire, like every inch of him is suddenly wound up and screaming for… he doesn't even know what. 

He finds himself wanting to reach out and run his hands through Billy's hair and feels his fingers stuffing themselves into his pockets to avoid doing just that. Then Billy's reaching for something and backing away but still smiling that perfect and perfectly lecherous smile of his, the one that's all painted on charm and nothing real, nothing like the look in his eyes last night or even just the look he'd been giving him only a minute ago.

Steve opens his mouth and is about to say something when something small and square catches his eye so he looks down and that's when he sees it. The thing Billy had grabbed? 

It's a box of condoms. 

Steve spins around and notices that the shelf right behind him is packed with them. Because of course, it is. 

"See you later," Billy says, somehow managing to make the words sound like a promise and a threat all at once. It's every bit as cliche as everything else Billy normally does and just as effective.

Steve doesn't move until he hears the bell above the front door jingle, signaling, he hopes, that Billy's gone. He waits another minute just to be sure then tears out of the building like he's on fire and running will somehow help put it out. He can't help but notice the Camaro parked next to his car. 

He runs the four blocks to the diner. 

Inside, he spots Dustin already waiting for him and halfway through what, Steve is sure, was previously a very large strawberry milkshake. Dustin waves with his whole arm the second he looks up, like Steve won't notice him otherwise and Steve can't help but smile and wave back.

Fortunately, he stops panting halfway to the booth and as he slides in he schools his face into an expression approaching normal.

Or not, because the second he's seated Dustin drops his straw into his milkshake and gives him this concerned look.

"What's up?" Dustin asks, brow furrowing and lips still parted after he speaks. 

Steve shrugs. _Now or never,_ he supposes. He digs into his back pocket and grabs the photo of him and Billy and slaps it on the table. 

Dustin looks confused. "I don’t get it. You’re friends with a jackass, so?"

"But…" The wheels in Steve's brain are spinning. Spinning and spinning and spinning. "But I'm not," is all he can think to say. 

Dustin rolls his eyes._ "I'm not friends with jackasses," _ he says, doing a terrible imitation of what Steve thinks is supposed to be him. _"He's nicer if you get to know him." _ Dustin contorts his face in a way Steve knows he's never done. "Whatever." 

"No," Steve grinds out. "No, that's not it. I'm not friends with him. At all." He taps a finger at the photo. "I don't remember taking this picture." 

Dustin still looks confused but now there's worry mixed in with it, so Steve tries to explain. He leans in and whispers, "Yesterday me and Robin were just driving around doing nothing then all of a sudden, Billy Hargrove's in the backseat of my car."

"You mean like… he jumped in?" Dustin asks. He leans far enough back in his seat that he brushes up against the cheap red vinyl backing of the booth. "Were you stopped or…?" He looks like he's trying to picture how someone could jump into a moving car. Trying and failing. 

"No!" Steve hisses loud enough to get a disapproving look from the waitress wiping down the table three over from them. "No, I mean like poof. One second he's not there and then… he is." 

"Uh…" Dustin mumbles, and again he leaves his lips parted long after he's stopped making any sort of noise. It takes a second before he speaks up again. "Was he confused about this? Was he shocked?"

"No," Steve says, still whispering even though Dustin hasn't been bothering to. "That's the thing. It was just like he'd always been there." He doesn't mention Billy showing up at his house last night or at the pharmacy. He has no idea how to explain that to Dustin. Or how Dustin might react.

"And Robin?" Dustin asks. He takes a big slurp of his milkshake, practically finishing it off. His eyes are as big as dinner plates and it's making Steve feel twitchy. 

"She acted like he'd always been there, like we're friends with him, like nothing had happened," Steve says. He doesn't try to hide anything now, doesn't try not to look or sound terrified. He _is_ terrified and looking at the photo and seeing the confusion that just won't leave Dustin's face isn't making it better.

Dustin opens his mouth to say something to that but the waitress from three tables over starts walking over to them and Dustin shuts his mouth.

"What can I get for ya?" the waitress says just before she's fully in front of their table. 

Steve blanches and for a moment his mind goes blank.

"Um, pancakes," he says, going with the first thing that enters his mind. 

But then Dustin makes a face and Steve can't help but wonder if maybe with the way things have changed he's not supposed to like pancakes or something, until Dustin says, "We came here for milkshakes, didn't we?" and Steve finds himself letting out a small, relieved breath. 

"Right. Pancakes and two strawberry milkshakes, then," Steve says with a nod to the waitress. 

"Make mine chocolate," Dustin says, giving the waitress the biggest, flirtiest smile he can manage.

She ignores him, flips her blonde hair over shoulder and nods at Steve before grabbing the menus Steve hadn't even noticed were on the table and heading for the kitchen to place their order.

Dustin takes the last sip of his now well and truly empty strawberry milkshake and says, "Variety," with a shrug, like that means something. 

It's another second before he says, "So…" He swallows. "I'm sorry, so you're not… friends with Billy?" 

Steve sighs._ "No, _ I'm telling you, I'm _ not." _ He stops short of saying the next part. He hopes Dustin is going to get it, wants him to understand before he has to explain. 

He doesn't. 

"Okay," Steve says. He purses his lips and grabs at the edge of the table. The cheap, unfinished wood on the underside of it bites into his hands and makes him feel braver somehow.

"For me, before yesterday, Billy Hargrove was dead. He got flayed by the Mindflayer and died at the mall." He squeezes his eyes shut halfway through saying "flayed" but finds himself peeking out of one eye at Dustin once he's done. 

Dustin's mouth has dropped open again, this time forming a near perfect "O". "It's like… alternate timelines!" he squeaks excitedly. He's _ excited _ and Steve wants to _hit him._

"What…" Steve croaks out. "What does that even mean?" 

"Okay, so," Dustin says, hands toying with his milkshake straw. He's got this big excess of energy all of a sudden, clearly glad to be explaining more of his nerd stuff to Steve, to anyone probably, and have them listen, to have it be relevant.

"For me, when we had that big showdown at the mall, the person that got flayed was that girl Heather." He gives Steve a serious, appraising look. "And you've always been friends with Billy, ever since he moved into town. Well, or, almost, anyway. There were a few weeks where you hated each other but then you both seemed to realize you could be King One and King Two and it was fine."

He looks particularly proud of the terms King One and King Two. Probably came up with them himself. 

"But…" Steve wants to add something else to that but, he does, he just… can't. There aren't words.

"But you remember it differently?" 

Steve nods. Still says nothing. His mind has been reduced to crackling static and the white, fuzzy look a television gets when left on with nothing to play.

"Which is what makes me think we're probably dealing with two different timelines somehow being blended together," Dustin says, sounding like what he's just said is totally normal and something that happens all the time. Like it's no more frightening or even annoying than trying to figure out what part of your car it is that isn't working. 

Problem is, even then Steve's pretty well always the guy who looks for ten minutes before giving up and going and calling a mechanic. 

Or in this case, he guesses, Dustin. 

"We should tell the others," Dustin says, suddenly serious. 

"No!" Steve shouts before he even really thinks it through. He doesn't want to risk Billy being part of that group. He can't handle it. 

"Okay…" Dustin says, drawing the word out to about three times its normal length. "So what do you want to do about it then?"

Before Steve has to come up with an answer the waitress comes over with his pancakes and their milkshakes and Steve digs into his food so quickly and with so much raw enthusiasm that there's no time for talking, not even in between bites. 

He has no idea what he wants to do about this. Fortunately, Dustin seems to get the hint and doesn't ask again.

\---

Work that afternoon doesn't go much better. It's dead from the minute Steve gets there until the minute Billy comes strolling in with Jessica Carpenter draped on his arm and looking like she's about to melt, she's so happy to be there. 

Billy ignores him and Robin both until they get to the checkout counter and then it's only to sneer pointedly at Steve.

Once they've gone Robin turns to Steve and says, "Okay, what'd you do?" 

"What?" Steve nearly physically jumps back at the accusation. "Why do you assume_ I _ did something?"

Robin stares at him. "Because it's always you." 

"Me? Last night he -" Steve stops, checks to make sure the store is empty. It is. "Last night he barged into my house and he tried to -"

He looks around the store again. It's still empty.

"He was just… he was just being so _ weird." _ He still can't bring himself to say weird _how_ exactly. He isn't sure if he could put it into words even if he felt brave enough to do it.

Robin rolls her eyes aggressively enough they look like they might just fall right out of her head.

"Okay, really, Steve?" she says, sounding as annoyed with him as she used to, back before they were friends.

The door opens and a couple walks in before Steve can say anything, not that either half of the couple notices. They head straight for the romance section at the back of the store, hands roaming over each other so much it's like they think if they stop touching they'll stop breathing.

Steve watches them for a moment and for probably the most backwards of reasons, it makes him feel brave. Well, brave-ish. He grabs a scrap piece of paper and a pen off the counter, scribbles down _Is Billy gay??? _ and shows it to Robin. 

Robin's eyes go huge, just like Dustin's had earlier. "What, did you hit your head or something?" 

Steve doesn't reply, just looks between her and the couple at the back. They're flipping through the boxes on the shelf, trying to pick between two tapes Steve can't see the covers of from here. They look like they're so caught up in each other they wouldn't notice if a tornado came down and blew the store apart around them. 

_ Must be nice,_ Steve thinks before looking back at Robin.

"Seriously, Steve," she says, staring at him like he's managed to grow some extra body part he's unaware of in the last five seconds. "What kind of a question is that?" 

Steve shrugs. He can feel the blush erupting on his cheeks. "I'm sorry, I'm sure it's none of my business." He ducks his head in shame. "I shouldn't have asked." 

The couple walks to the front and Steve checks them out. He looks at the tape they picked - _ Romancing the Stone _ \- and wonders what it's about. He's pretty sure he hasn't seen it, doesn't recognize the cover, at least. But then Robin usually takes pity on him and doesn't force him to watch romantic movies, which he's pretty sure this is, considering the title and the section they were in.

They're only barely out the door before Robin is asking him, "No, seriously. Did you hit your head? Do you need a doctor? Because we can shut down the store and go to the hospital."

What she's saying could easily be sarcastic, but it's not. She looks legitimately concerned for him now.

Steve sighs. "No, I don't need a doctor, Robin. I'm fine." 

It's a lie and they both know it. 

And she calls him on it.

And it takes less than a second after that for him to break and tell her everything. Dustin's theories. That Billy was dead before yesterday. Seeing him again this morning. Everything. 

Well, everything except for wanting to touch Billy's hair. That part he keeps to himself. 

Lastly, he drags the now slightly crumpled photo out of his back pocket and shows it to her and he watches as the smile blooms on her face that says she recognizes it. He tries to pretend it doesn't make him feel queasy (even though it absolutely does).

"Oh, I remember this," she says, the words sounding soft and sweet. Then the expression on her face changes. "But you don't."

She looks at him for a moment, then looks away. Steve can't help but feel like there's something to do with the photo she's not telling him. Or something bigger, maybe. 

"Does all this mean you're not…" she trails off and for a moment, everything is silent. She doesn't finish and Steve toys with the idea of not asking, of just changing the subject and being done with whatever this is. 

He wants to, but he can't. "Not what?" he asks.

Robin bites her bottom lip, uncertain and very un-Robin. "How do you not know this about yourself? How -" She bites off the rest of her words, leaving Steve to just stare at her and wait.

"So you don't remember being friends with me?" she asks. 

"I remember being friends with you," he says. "Just, for me, I met you this summer working at Scoops." But then, as he says it, it suddenly isn't true anymore. He starts seeing things, tiny flashes of memories. Him and Robin under the bleachers at school, laughing. The two of them drunk at a party. Her cheering him on at a basketball game. Him giving her the dorkiest thumbs up as she flashes a test with a big red "A" on it at him. Being in his room and watching _ Sixteen Candles _ and her having a crush on Molly Ringwald. 

When he comes to he's sitting sprawled out on the floor with an even more concerned looking Robin crouching in front of him. He rubs a hand across his face and it comes back smeared in blood. 

"Your nose is bleeding," Robin says


	3. Wishing you were here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just as a heads up, there's porn in this chapter as well as a scene between Billy and his father.

_Saturday, November 2nd, 1985_

The instant Billy wakes up he rolls over and looks at his alarm clock. It's 8:06. He's overslept. 

Silently he rolls out of bed and creeps towards the door. He listens, waits until he smells the scent of eggs frying and leans back, letting his toes lift off the floor so he's balancing on his heels. He stops for a minute and thinks, ultimately deciding that the first thing to do is pick out some clothes and do his hair. 

He takes as long as he possibly can, picks his best outfit and styles his hair until it's flawless then goes back over to the door and listens. Waits.

He hears footsteps in the kitchen still and bites his lip to keep from making a sound. He was hoping they'd be gone by now, but if they're not (and they're not) then there's not much else for him to do, though he does eye himself in the mirror one more time, debates maybe doing something else with his hair. He reaches a hand up to touch it, to test it and knows near instantly that it won't work. Any more hairspray and it'll start to get sticky and then it'll start clumping up and then it'll be useless. 

No, the only way out now is out so he grabs his boots, laces them up, and curls his fists once, then twice. Once he's prepared he steps out into the hall and heads for the kitchen.

He manages to reach the door, even manages to grab his coat before Susan turns to him and says, "Would you like some breakfast?" 

He's about to say no when he hears the telltale sound of newspaper crinkling. Without even turning around he can practically see the way Neil's fingers are going white at the edges with how tightly they're gripping that paper so he turns around, coat still in hand and says, "Sure."

He sits down at the table and grabs a section of the paper, anything for a distraction while under the table his free hand clenches and unclenches around his coat like a wave crashing up against a rock it knows it can't break. 

He watches Susan eye the half-empty carton of eggs and the freshly scrubbed skillet before settling on grabbing the box of Eggos from the freezer and putting two of them into the toaster. They've never spoken about it but they both know how this game is played. They both know how dangerous it would be for him to be in the kitchen long enough for something like eggs to cook.

The Eggos pop up just as Neil says, "Do you have any plans for the day?" and Billy can't help but notice the way Susan busies herself with the butter and the maple syrup for the waffles, anything to avoid eye contact with either of them.

Billy sets his section of the paper down and under the table grips his coat with both hands. "Nope," he says, proud as anything. 

Neil stares him down over the top of the sports section he's been reading for who knows how long. He assesses. Analyzes. Probably finds Billy wanting in some way that only makes sense to him.

"You're not gonna hang out with those friends of yours?" he says, sounding suspicious for reasons Billy simultaneously can't fathom and knows he doesn't like. 

Billy shrugs. "I dunno, maybe." 

"Well, were you planning on calling them or -" Neil's question is cut off by Susan setting a plate in front of Billy. In addition to the butter and syrup, she's added neatly chopped strawberries on top of the Eggos, like that's gonna fix anything. 

Billy wolfs it all down fast enough that he knows it's going to give him a stomach ache later, but he doesn't care. His defensive instincts are starting to itch at the back of his throat and he doesn't want to risk listening to them.

He carefully puts his plate in the sink and thanks Susan before putting his coat on and heading out. He just catches Neil saying something as he closes the door but whether it's to him or to her he doesn't know and he doesn't bother to stop and check. 

He's escaped. It's good enough. 

He starts the engine of his car and cranks the volume on his tape deck up loud enough to drown out his thoughts then takes off. He circles around town once or twice, hands tapping against his steering wheel along with his music. He's considering going over to Robin's to see if she's up yet when he sees Steve's tacky BMW parked in front of the pharmacy. 

He knows that after last night he should probably just leave well enough alone, but he also knows he's going to do it anyway. He's never been any good at avoiding the things he knows he should; the scars and cracked skin on his knuckles can attest to that. 

He finds Steve in the center aisle and feels his breath catch in his throat. Fortunately he's had enough practice faking just about everything in his life that his smirk doesn't falter for a second. It's harder to hide the way he feels his heart rev up and start crashing against his ribs like it's trying to crack them, especially when it feels like given enough time it might just succeed, but he finds a way to manage that, too.

Part of him, ridiculously, wants Steve to notice all this. Wants Steve to put his hands on his chest and know that what his heart is galloping towards is him. Wants Steve to be able to somehow sense his sheer and utter terror at this situation, see through his bullshit and with one simple look make him forget everything like he's always done, even back before they were friends.

Steve looks up and sees him walking down the aisle and for a split second it even seems like things are going to work out. Like last night was a fluke and everything is back the way it was. Steve looks over at him and in that split second everything is good, everything is right, everything is fine. 

Billy waves at him like a dork and carefully says, "Hey." Testing the waters.

And then everything splits down the center and cracks open wide.

"Hey," Steve says back. He looks the same, is wearing the same clothes and if Billy were close enough he'd guess he even smells the same but the look on his face… it's different. Panicked. Steve looks panicked and that panic is charging straight for him and hitting him at full speed like a truck, making him grit his teeth and widen his smile.

In his mind Billy pictures his heart charging straight out of his chest, tearing a big, bloody hole right through the center of him and leaving blood splattered on his lips with the force of it all. It takes actual effort not to raise his hands to his chest and make sure that hasn't actually happened.

Because Steve is afraid of him and it makes him want to choke and to shake and to scatter but instead he decides he's going to play with the way Steve looks like an honest to goddamn fucking rabbit ready to run. He positions himself like the apex predator he's always pretending to be and glides down the aisle heading straight for Steve with no plan in mind until he sees the wall of condoms behind him and thinks, _Good enough._

Casually he leans in and puts his hands just past Steve's shoulders as he reaches in and grabs a box of condoms off the wall, pretends he doesn't see Steve sticking his hands in his pockets and decides he doesn't want to know why. 

"See you later," he says, letting his words sound just as predatory as he knows the sneer he lets overtake his face looks. It's a good cover for how desperate just the smell of Steve's stupid shampoo makes him feel.

He doesn't actually buy the condoms, either, just throws them onto the front counter, almost hitting the girl behind said counter as he does so. If she says anything about it, he doesn't hear her, just shoves his hands in his pockets and heads outside into the stupidly cold and disgusting winter.

He's just closing the door of his Camaro when he sees Steve running from the pharmacy.

"Hah," he barks, even though there's no one to hear him. "Idiot," he says, though he isn't sure if he means Steve or himself at this point. 

He drives out to his favorite spot in the woods and digs a hand into the front left pocket of his jeans where he knows he'd stashed a joint two weeks earlier. Instead he finds his fingers wrapping around a thin slip of paper with torn edges. He closes his eyes as he drags it out, not that it helps any - he already knows exactly what it is. Or rather, exactly what's on it.

He cracks his eyes open and sighs as he reads over the words: _ Vincent Price - 2131 Acklen Ave. Nashville - 615-848-7149. _

He fights between crumpling up the piece of paper and throwing it out the window or calling and yelling at the bastard. He wants to choose the first option, wants to just wash his hands of all of this and pretend it never happened, pretend he isn't like this, pretend he's normal and everything's _ fine._

But, as always, he goes with the dumber option and starts his car up again, heading towards the gas station just up the road and the nearest payphone. 

He then proceeds to stand in front of the payphone, not doing anything, for long enough for his hands to go numb and for anyone who drives by to seriously question his sanity. He smokes a cigarette and half the joint he had in his right pocket (not his left, like he'd first thought) then finally manages to dig the piece of paper out of his pocket again and get on with it. 

The guy answers the phone on the first ring and Billy lets him have it, screams and threatens better and more menacingly than he's ever managed before in his entire life and all to no effect. 

"Look, man," says Vincent, the slimy little bastard, "I told you, no refunds. I also told you that it probably wouldn't work exactly like you wanted. But I remember you said, and I'm quoting here -" He cuts off and laughs. The piece of shit actually has the nerve to laugh. "You said he can marry, what was her name? Nancy fucking Wheeler so long as he comes back? So I don't get why you're complaining."

Billy growls low and deep in his throat. "I don't care what I said, this is not what I paid for so you're gonna fix it or I'm gonna -" 

He's cut off by Vincent saying, "You try it and I'll set everything back the way it was," and then hanging up.

For a minute, Billy just stands there, dumbstruck. He's tempted to call the guy back and yell at him some more, but he knows it'll do no good. He's aware that he might not be exactly the smartest guy ever, but he's still not dumb enough to think _ that _ would work.

Then carefully, so as not to rip it, he starts flipping the piece of paper over and over in his hand. After a few flips, he notices a number on the back, scrawled in pencil. He thinks back and remembers Eleven scribbling it down and telling him to call if he ever needed to. He dials the number and hopes she meant it.

This time it takes six rings and he almost hangs up twice before the other end gets picked up.

"Hi, is El there?" he asks in his best, most sugary sweet tone, the one that usually gets him anything he wants when applied correctly.

"Hi, I'm sorry, but who's calling?" asks a voice Billy is pretty sure is El's… mother, or whatever she is now.

He panics. He has no idea how to explain this to her, what she knows, what she'd be okay with knowing. "You know what, nevermind," he says before hanging up the phone. 

_ Chicken,_ he thinks to himself. _ Bitch._

He snarls, picks up the phone and slams it into the receiver a good six or seven times. He screams so loud and makes so much noise that the guy working in the gas station comes running out to glare at him. 

"You break that, you buy it!" he shouts in this high pitched, uppity voice that makes the threat impossible to take seriously. 

Billy glares at him for it anyway and the guy practically jumps back a whole foot, he's so scared. It makes Billy feel a little bit better, knowing he can still scare _ someone,_ at least. He smiles viciously as he walks away from the payphone and this causes the guy to scramble back even farther, looking like he might actually pee in his pants like he's one of those tiny little rat dogs Billy had seen back in California that loses it anytime so much as the wind gets too loud.

He gets in his Camaro and drives away, no plan in mind on where to go or what to do now. The day stretches out before him, long and looming and lonely. It's barely noon and he can't go home, obviously can't go to Steve's and he can't risk going to Robin's right now, either. He can't deal with the possibility of her not remembering everything, not right now and maybe not ever. 

He drives around the edge of town one more time before he remembers: Jessica Carpenter. She was all over him at lunch every day this week and again he finds himself thinking, _ Good enough_.

He turns the car in the direction of her house and smiles, glad to again have a plan, a direction.

He pulls up to her house and knocks on the door real slow, like he hasn't got a care in the world. She answers a second later, bright blonde ponytail bouncing nearly as much as her boobs in her ridiculous, inappropriate-for-Indiana-in-November sparkly pink tank top.

"Oh, Billy, hi!" she says, perkiness flowing out of her like water from a faucet. "What are you doing here?"

She crosses her arms under her boobs, pushing them up aggressively. It makes those barely chewed Eggos from earlier churn in his stomach but he flicks his eyes down and widens them momentarily, smiles in a way he knows signals he's very much interested in what she's got on offer.

"Not much," he says slowly, gaze lazily ping-ponging from her face to her chest and back again. "Just couldn't stop thinking about you." 

"Oh." She smiles like she's trying to outdo the sun but it does nothing to warm him. "Well come in, then."

She spins back and waves a long arm at the big, ostentatious entryway to her big, ostentatious house. 

Billy steps inside and unties his boots as she says, "This is good timing, actually. My parents just went out."

He looks up at her just in time to see her eyes start to twinkle suggestively. Like she needed to be any more obvious.

He gives her a look to match as he toes his boots off. "Oh, yeah?" he says. He reaches forward and runs his fingers through her ponytail then twirls it around his hand and grips it just hard enough to sting. 

"Uh-huh," she says, her voice all breathy and her cheeks all pink. And he hates it, hates it, hates it. He hates her, he hates this stupid house, hates her stupid, low cut, tank top, and her stupid, bouncy ponytail. He probably hates the ponytail the most, out of all of it. Or maybe just hates himself.

He twists that ponytail just a little harder and puts his other hand on her shoulder. He smiles his well-practiced smile and pulls her up against him, burying his face in between her shoulder and her neck and placing the most delicate of kisses there. 

"Uhhh," she moans, breath coming out soft and weak. He can practically feel the way her legs are trembling. "My -" she whispers, "-my bedroom is just up the stairs." She points towards the large, beautiful, white staircase in the center of the room to make her point.

"Well," he says, dipping his voice in honey even if he'd rather it was filled with the static buzz of a thousand bees all with their stingers aimed at her. "We'd better make use of that then."

He places another kiss on her shoulder, this one a little more firm than the last and scrapes his teeth along the skin there just enough to make her shiver.

Delicately, he unwraps his hand from her hair and slides it down her arm to link their hands together. He raises an eyebrow at her as if to say, "After you,"and she downright giggles. Her face lights up and a rock the size of the state of Indiana itself sinks into his stomach. She leads him up the stairs to her bedroom, delight and excitement coloring her every movement and suddenly the thing he hates most here is definitely not her but himself. 

She closes the door carefully, quietly, like maybe they're not alone in the house and he realizes he doesn't know that they're not. For all he knows she could have a younger sibling, a tiny terror of a brother or sister ready to report on every little naughty thing their older sister dares to do. Not that he bothers to ask. And even if she does, she doesn't seem to care enough to mention it, so _ whatever._

He raises the hand he's holding to his mouth and kisses her knuckles, then turning her hand over and extricating his fingers he kisses her palm. He looks at her with the most adoring gaze he can manage even though he's really starting to feel like those Eggo chunks might just start trying to make a run for the door any second now if he's not careful. 

He leads her over to the bed and pushes her on to it with a heavy hand on her shoulder and she grins with the excitement of it. She tilts her head back, clearly melting into what she's feeling and as she's peeling off her tank top and bra he decides the only way he's going to make it through this is to imagine her as someone else. 

He imagines it's Steve's arm he's tracing his fingers up, Steve's collarbone he's outlining, Steve's waist he's gripping like it's a lifeline and the only thing keeping him sane. 

He runs his thumb along the waistband of her jeans then dips it inside, tracing a slow and deliberate line along her skin, almost reaching low enough to get somewhere but not quite and she moans, deep and full, spurring him on and he imagines it's Steve crying out, desperate for touch, desperate for more, desperate for him.

He unzips and pulls her jeans down with little fanfare but pretends like the vision of her silky peach pink panties is an absolute joy to behold.She blushes and he presses kisses just above her belly button, then just below. Breathes over the skin there, feels the goosebumps that spring up and presses a kiss just slightly lower down before looking up at her suggestively. 

There are a few things he's learned about women in his life, but two of the most important are probably that one: while they all salivate and go mad for his whole bad boy Billy bit, most of them want to be treated a little more delicately in the bedroom. The shock of someone who looks and acts like he normally does being in any way gentle just adds to it, gets them all amped up without him ever having to work very hard. And the less hard work for him in these scenarios, the better.

And two: almost all of them absolutely lose their goddamn minds when he goes down on them. Which is also good for him, because (and this is how he knows for sure he's broken) he's never been able to tolerate anything above or beyond that.

He's never been able to tolerate them touching him, which, for the most part, they don't. He's acquired enough skill over the years to make them think that this is all for their benefit rather than for his. They all pant and moan about how generous a lover he is, regardless of their age. They all say the same thing and none of them, not one, has caught on yet.

Jessica doesn't either with the way her eyes widen with want and desire and _oh,_ and _ yes,_ and _ please_. Again Billy finds himself picturing Steve's eyes going that wide, Steve wanting him, needing him, begging him to, _Please, please go faster. _ _ More. Please._

He places another kiss just off her hip, grabs the edge of her panties with his teeth and drags them down, imagining the entire time what the scrape of the delicate, soft fabric would sound like against Steve's skin, what sort of noises he'd make. 

He slides the panties down her legs in sickeningly slow motion, drops them on the floor then goes up to kiss her lips, looks her in the eye and smiles beatifically at her. He wouldn't have to smile at Steve, he thinks. He could just be with Steve, no faking it, no bullshit. 

He kisses her cheek, her chin, then just under her ear. He sucks at her neck and feels her pulse thundering just underneath her skin, at odds with the anxious way his blood is boiling over and how hard he's having to fight himself just to be here. 

He leans over her for a moment, grinning, teasing.

Her eyes are almost rolling back in her head, lost in the pleasure of the moment and he hates everything about it. Hates how soft her skin is, hates how objectively beautiful he knows she is, hates himself for not being able to care, for thinking this would be a good distraction in the first place.

He makes a show of stripping his shirt off, but leaves his pants on. He always leaves his pants on. He leans in again and places a kiss right between her breasts, trails over to a nipple and licks around and around and around until it's stiff and erect. His cock hardens at the sight of it and she reaches out to put her hand over it. It hurts like he's being burned but he lets her. To not would be too suspicious. To not would be to risk bringing attention to the fact that he's only hard from picturing all the ways Steve's body would react to being touched like this.

She smiles and it's fuzzy around the edges. He makes his face match hers then growls, deep in his throat like the sight of her naked before him is almost too much for him to bear and absolutely all he's ever wanted. The grin on her face spreads and he dips his head back to her hips, kissing from one side to the other and then down and down and down.

She moans appreciatively, gripping her fingers in his hair and pulling as he continues his descent.

He rests a hand on her thigh, nudging her to spread her legs wide and rewards her for doing so by spreading his fingers as far as they'll go and squeezing just as his tongue breaks into her. He blanks out the rest, swapping it for mental images of his mouth around Steve's dick, taking him all the way in and taking his time, imagining Steve calling out his name like he's praying for God and believes it. 

She howls when they're done and he's certain there must be no one else in the house; she's being the kind of loud that if anyone else were here they'd have run in by now.

He finishes with a kiss to her thigh then rises and puts a hand gently around the side of her neck, kisses her softly and thinks maybe he should be an actor with how good he is at faking it.

She makes a noise he knows he's supposed to think is cute and looks like she wants to say something, tries to, but only manages more wordless noises. He flops down gracelessly beside her and imagines pulling Steve next to him, wrapping his arms around Steve's chest and burying his face in Steve's shoulder.

"You," she says breathlessly. "Next time." The words and the idea behind them terrify Billy more than any fight ever has. 

"Mmhmm," he mumbles softly, feigning a sleepiness his body is way too on edge to actually feel. 

Then he hears the front door open downstairs and hears her parents call out for her. She groans like they've been interrupted from something wonderful and it takes him a second to realize that from her point of view, they have. 

"Up here!" she calls out as she hastily gets dressed and re-does her ponytail.

He grabs his shirt and throws it on, wondering as he always does how parents never seem to catch on. It's not exactly like the redness in their faces is subtle, not to mention the way her room now _ smells._ The way _ every _ room _ always _ smells after.

"Next time," she says sweetly, her too-white teeth all showing in her flawless, probably dentist-assisted smile. 

"Mmhmm," he says again, nodding. He adds a wink for good measure and she giggles and he can't help but feel like that massive rock in his gut is now crushing every single one of his organs rather than just his stomach.

"Once my parents leave again, wanna go get a movie?" she says, bouncing over to her vanity so she can re-apply all the bubblegum pink lipgloss she'd bitten and kissed off.

"Sure," he says with a shrug. 

They have to wait about an hour but manage to head out without her parents catching them or catching on that she had a boy in her room at all. He can't even say that this is the easiest sneak out he's ever had; for something so many bemoan so much, most don't even really try to look that hard or even pay very much attention at all.

They drive to the video store in a silence Billy knows they have wildly differing opinions on the comfort level of and she repeatedly tries to put her hand in his lap, fingers always crawling up, up, up. One time she gets close enough that he almost crashes the car and again she giggles. He can't help but think she wouldn't be giggling if she knew he almost crashed out of fear and not out of desire.

At the video store, Billy zeroes in on Steve almost the second they step inside. He feels an urge to pry Jessica off his arm and hold it out to Steve, like Steve's the only one it's really, truly meant for, but instead he turns Jessica towards the horror section and tries to focus on picking out something. Anything. 

"I hate horror," Jessica whines. She sticks her bottom lip out and leans into him, her chest pressing into his side where she's attached herself to him. 

"Too bad," he almost says. He wants to abandon her here and run to the counter and beg for the forgiveness of a Steve he knows doesn't care, doesn't know enough _ to _ care. "You can hide behind me for the scary bits," he says instead. "It won't be so bad."

This seems to appease Jessica as she tightens her grip on his arm and says, "Oh, alright. So long as you pick a not too scary one." 

"Sure," he says, all the while scanning the rows in front of him for the worst, scariest movie they've got. His eyes land on _ Day of the Dead _ and, continuing with the apparent theme of the day, he figures, _ Good enough. _He grabs it and drags Jessica to the front. 

He tries to say something to Steve but only manages to sneer and has to hand the tape to Robin to check it out instead. 

Once they're outside Jessica loosens her grip and says, "What, are you guys in a fight or something?" 

"Huh?"

She nods her head back at the store as they continue walking towards his car. "You glared at him like you're pissed at him or something."

Billy shrugs. "Or something."

They get into his car and she doesn't ask any follow-up questions, seemingly knowing him well enough to know he's not going to give her any more answer than that, which is probably the first and only thing he's appreciated about her so far.

On the drive back she wraps herself around him as much as she can without actually crawling over the center console completely and for the first time in this whole wretched trainwreck of a day he finds himself thinking that it _ isn't _ good enough. Not this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was my first time writing porn and it's really sad and I really love it? Like, I'm just such a big ball of angst.
> 
> Also thank you to the people who have left comments! You're all lovely and beautiful and you make my day!


	4. Pictures of you

_ Saturday, November 2nd, 1985 _

"You okay?" Robin asks as she holds out her hand to help Steve up. 

He shakes his head, groans, then smashes the palm of his hand into his eye. "Uh, I think so?"

"You think or you know? 'Cause you just fell over and your nose is bleeding." Robin looks at him and tries not to worry, she does, but the whole situation is weird. Like Hawkins Freaky level weird. 

"Yeah, I know, you said that already!" Steve snaps, moving his hand from squishing his eye to squishing his hair. He groans pitifully and squeezes his eyes shut.

Robin grabs the box of Kleenexes Keith is perpetually stashing under the counter for his allergies and whacks Steve with it. "Well, considering how weird things tend to get around here, it's the sort of thing that bears repeating," she says.

Steve cracks an eye open and glares first at her, then the Kleenex box. He grabs one and rips it in half, stuffing one half in each nostril and making himself look utterly ridiculous in the process.

Robin doesn't mean to, even tries to stop herself but she can't help it, she bursts out laughing.

"I mean," she says, "it's not still bleeding now, now it's just a mess." 

"Well…" Steve says, his voice coming out all nasally because of all that Kleenex and it makes her laugh even more. He makes a face and takes the Kleenex out. "I didn't know that." 

"Okay, come on, come here." Still laughing Robin turns Steve's face to her and starts cleaning up the mess he's made of it. 

She's almost done when Keith walks in. "What the hell happened to you, Harrington?" he asks. 

It's a question Robin would very much like the answer to herself, but she doubts she's going to get the truth with Keith standing in front of them the way he is. If she's even going to get the truth at all.

Steve, in typical Steve fashion, shrugs. "Nosebleed," he says. "I get them sometimes in the winter." 

Robin doesn't believe him but Keith seems to, which, she supposes, was the point. 

"You know," Keith says with the most put upon, most dramatic sigh he's capable of, "you two could at least pretend like you're working instead of making kissy faces at each other." 

The idea of kissing Steve is about as appealing as kissing a dead fish, but Robin lets it go. Keith decided about a month after they started working here that the two of them just had to be dating, because in the world according to Keith men and women just can't be friends and Robin's long since stopped trying to dissuade him of the idea. She figures it's better than him knowing the truth, at least.

Steve, however, is unable to control himself and makes a face like he's actually being presented with a dead fish to kiss and even adds in a, "Eww, gross!" just to top it all off. 

All these months later and he still can't stop reacting to it every single time Keith goads them. Robin sort of wonders if it has anything to do with the fact that for Steve the idea of dating a girl isn't completely off the mark the way it is with her and guys, like maybe with that involved it somehow bothers him more. 

Either way, Robin kicks him in the shin for his reaction then looks to Keith and gives him her best dead-eyed look. She waves a hand at the empty store dramatically before saying, "And what work would we be doing, anyway? We've already shelved all the returns and switched out all the posters and there clearly isn't anybody here."

For a split-second, Keith looks angry. "Well-" 

And that's when Steve decides to dive straight for just about the worst thing he could say in the moment: "And we're almost off shift anyway, right?" 

Robin has to actively struggle not to groan or smack her hand to her forehead as she watches Keith check his watch, the little muscle in his jaw twitching to display for anyone who knows how to look just how irritated he suddenly is. Because Keith, well, Keith might not care about a lot of things but one of the few things he's a stickler for is time. And a glance down at her own watch tells Robin they've got fifteen minutes left. They're screwed.

"Well, isn't that a shock," Keith says, bland face almost forming a sneer. Almost. The chip crumbs on his shirt ruin the look. "Steve Harrington wants to clock out early." He sighs again, like this is something Steve does often. Like Steve isn't here just as much as everybody else, doesn't try just as hard as everybody else. 

It isn't true.

Steve, of course, gets flustered anyway. How the boy ever ran an entire school, Robin has no idea. She was there, she saw it first hand and still, she has no idea. 

"Well, I mean, I don't..." Steve says, all embarrassed.

Robin rolls her eyes. "Dude, look at him," she says, pointing at Steve. "Does he look okay to you?"

Keith looks at Steve and the faint smear of blood still on his upper lip and huffs. "Fine. Whatever. Go clean up your boyfriend's face and… whatever."

Robin runs to the back room to grab their things before heading back out front and saying to Keith, "Thank you." She wraps an arm around Steve and starts directing him towards the door. "Thank you so much, dude." Then, just for good measure, "We owe you one." 

She knows from the way Steve tenses up with her arm around him that he hates what she's doing, the little show she's putting on for Keith's benefit, but she's been pretending to be straight her whole life, pretending with Steve is probably the least awful that particular act's ever been, whether Steve gets that or why it's necessary or not.

\---

Once they're outside and fully out of Keith's line of sight, Robin stops. "Okay," she says. "Now are you going to tell me what actually happened in there or what?" 

She shrugs her coat on and passes Steve his. He grabs it, but doesn't put it on, instead walking over to his car and shivering the entire time.

He pulls his car keys out before he answers her question. "I… don't entirely know. We were talking and then all of a sudden I started seeing things." 

"Seeing things?" Robin stomps over and snatches his keys from his hand. 

"What? I'm not -" He grabs his keys back. "I'm fine to drive, I'm not seeing things now." 

He puts the key into the lock and it makes Robin start seeing red. 

"No, you idiot, we need to talk about this!" She puts her hand over the car door's handle, doing her best to physically stop him from leaving. 

They just stand there like that, neither one of them moving for about ten seconds before his shoulders finally slump and he gives in. 

"You're probably right," he says.

"Damn right I'm right, now let's go. We can talk at my place." She's halfway to her car before she realizes he's not following her. She turns to see him still clutching his car keys and standing in front of his car. 

"Steve?" she says. "My car's this way." She even points helpfully towards it, not that he bothers to look. He just stands there, staring at his reflection in his driver's side window.

She lets this go on for a few seconds before yelling, "Yo, Steven! Come on!" in an attempt to provoke a reaction. Any reaction. 

She gets one, but it's small, slight and not at all like him. 

"Yeah, sure, I'll uh, I'll follow you there," he says quietly. He doesn't even mention her using the wrong name. And still, he just stands there, staring at his reflection until she starts considering physically dragging him over.

She gets as far as taking a step towards him before he shakes his head, pockets his car keys and heads towards her. "You know what, maybe I'll just come with you," he says, like he's convinced himself it's his idea.

"I think that might be the first time you've used your brain in the last -" she pauses for dramatic effect, "-twenty minutes. Good job." 

She smiles at him as he ambles over and climbs in the passenger side of her car. He doesn't smile back. 

The drive to her place isn't much better. Her car almost breaks down twice on the way there and then when she tries to liven things up by turning on the radio, looking for some of that cheesy pop shit he loves so much, he physically turns away from her. She attempts to sing badly, like he usually does, but that doesn't seem to help either, so eventually, she just lets that go too and watches as the car fills with empty, heavy silence. 

Silence and way too much time to think. About what he said. About what it means. About what it affects. 

They park, walk inside her building, get into the elevator, ride it all the way to Robin's floor and get out all in a continuation of the stony silence from the car. 

Inside her apartment, they both shuffle their shoes off and she hangs their coats in the hall closet before waving a hand towards the living room. "Go," she says. "Sit down. Or whatever."

Steve nods in response but doesn't say anything and it makes her feel about ten different kinds of tense all at once. She hates silence. Silence and her are not and have not ever been friends. She doesn't want to be friends with silence, either, but it feels like Steve is starting to become obsessed with it and it's driving her a little crazy. And making her a lot worried. Steve's not usually a fan of silence, either.

She follows him down the hall, unhappily staring at her feet the entire time, almost screaming just to make some sort of noise when she runs into him. She has just enough time to think, _ Oh, shit, _ but not enough time to do anything about it.

It makes a slick and slimy feeling of dread plop down into the center of her stomach and spread and for a second, all she does is stand there, marinating in the feeling and not moving.

Steve doesn't move either. 

Then slowly, so slowly she would swear she can feel every muscle in her neck moving individually as she does it, she lifts her head to see Steve staring at the wall of photos of her, him and Billy taped to the wall behind the couch.

She watches as he walks towards it and crawls up onto the couch to take a closer look at the photos. He runs his fingers over the photo of her and him and Billy at graduation, the one where Billy is yanking on the tassel on Steve's graduation cap, almost pulling it off his head. Then the photo of the three of them outside the school, leaning up against the brick wall of the PE building with her between the two of them with the camera, her hand on Billy's face as he's turned to look at Steve and Steve is laughing. And there's a photo from a day they'd spent at the lake, Billy lifting her over his shoulder and dragging her kicking and screaming to the water. She remembers Steve laughing as he took the photo, remembers the way her bikini top came untied as she hit the water and thinking, _ Thank god there's no one but these two dorks here to see me. _

A brief spark of recognition crosses Steve's face and the hope that Robin feels wash over her at that one simple expression is overwhelming. She starts to smile, feels like she might burst out laughing out of sheer relief, but then he reaches into his back pocket and pulls out that crumpled photo of him and Billy that he'd showed her earlier and he says, "This is the same photo." 

He taps the one he's holding against the matching one up on the wall and the spark of recognition fizzles, leaving Robin feeling like she wants to shrivel up and fall apart like the months' dead ficus she's got sitting in a planter in the corner. 

"Yeah," she says. She's got nothing else. Maybe she'll have to become friends with silence, after all.

"Sorry, I…" Steve shoves his copy of the photo back into his back pocket. 

"No, it's okay…" Robin says, trailing off just as lamely as he had. She doesn't know what to say to him right now. 

"I just…" Steve sinks into the couch and without seeming to think much of it grabs the same throw pillow he always does and crushes it to his chest the way he always does and it might not be much of a sign that the boy that's one of her best friends in the whole, entire world is still in there, is still here, but Robin is desperate and she'll take what she can get. 

"I saw you. I said we'd only been friends since the summer and then suddenly, I saw you," he says. He sounds so lost she can't help but rush over and sit next to him, her knee bumping up against his. The relief she feels when he bumps his knee back against hers is undeniable. 

"What do you mean, you saw me?" 

"I mean I saw you. Birthdays, parties, watching stupid movies together. One second all I remember is having met you over the summer, the next, there's all these memories I didn't have before."

Robin nods. "And these memories, they're just of me?"

"What do you mean, just of you? That's what I -" Steve cuts himself short and turns to look at the wall of photos behind him. "Oh."

"We need to tell Billy about this," Robin says. "He knows about all this…" She waves her hand around in a circle she knows explains nothing but that she intends to mean the Upside Down. She hates calling it that, always has. It sounds childish, but then of course it does, it was named by actual children.

Steve breaks away from the photos to look at her. "Knows about all what?" he asks. 

"The monsters and demons and death nonsense."

"Oh." It's only one word but Steve says it like there's more to it than that.

Robin nods. "Yeah. He was there with us and the kids when that giant monster tried to kill Eleven and killed Heather."

Steve twitches next to her. "He was?" 

She looks over at him and sees a look on his face that she can't quite decipher.

"...What do you remember of that night exactly?" Robin asks. "You gave me a rough outline earlier, but I need to know specifically."

She bumps her knee against his again and tries to remind herself that he's still Steve, no matter what. Still her friend, no matter what. It's something that's harder to believe when this time, he doesn't bump his knee back.

"I…" Steve shakes his head. "I'm not sure anymore. I don't know."

It feels like one of those choose your own adventure books Robin had always loved as a kid. She can either press him on it and insist, or back off. She takes a moment, weighs both options, then chooses to insist and hopes and prays she's not wrong. 

"Oh, I think you do," she says. "Now tell me. What do you remember?" 

Steve purses his lips. He looks like he's got something he doesn't want to say, like he's afraid of something he might break, which is funny considering the things she's holding back for fear of breaking him. Considering the details of the photos behind them that he's conveniently decided to ignore, like all the meaningful looks between himself and Billy in almost every single one of them. 

"Well," he starts. "Well, I told you Billy was dead in the world I come from, right?" 

Nervously, Robin nods. She'd sort of ignored that part the first time she'd heard it for the obvious reasons you'd usually ignore information like that. 

"Well, he was there that night," Steve says, licking his lips. "He was there but he was the one who'd been flayed. He was the one the monster killed. Heather was just his accomplice." 

And that? Robin was not expecting that. The idea of it churns her stomach until she feels like she might just pitch over face first and slam into the coffee table. She almost does except for the comforting hand Steve puts on her leg. 

"I'm sorry," he says again. He waves his other hand at the wall. "I know that can't be easy for you to hear." 

"We need to tell him. He needs to know about this." Robin gulps and fights against picturing one of her best friends skewered by a monster. The first time she heard Steve say Billy was dead where he came from she had to fight off imagining him dying in a car accident or from drinking too much, not this. This is worse. She doesn't know why, but this is so much worse.

"I don't want to," Steve says. "Please, don't." There's a pleading tone to his voice that sets Robin's nerves even more sharply on edge than they already were. 

"Why not?" 

Steve takes a deep breath and pushes it out slow before answering and it only serves to ratchet up the tension for her even further. "Because last I knew he was not the kind of person you're friends with," he says. He pauses another moment before continuing and Robin isn't sure she's going to be able to take whatever he's got to say next. 

"Because last I knew," Steve says, "he was a violent bastard who broke a plate over my head." 

She asks, "What? Okay, when did this happen?" and pulls the words out slow to avoid tripping over any of them. She remembers back to when Steve and Billy first met. She knows they fought it out a couple of times, saw the bruises they both were sporting on the days after but she's pretty sure she doesn't remember hearing anything about any plates. She's pretty sure it never got quite that bad.

"I…" Steve says again. He runs a hand through his hair, leaving it standing at all sorts of awkward angles without at all trying to put it back into place afterward. "I don't know, a while ago?" 

He sinks back into the couch and screws his eyes shut. He looks exhausted.

"You know what, it's late, we're both really tired, maybe we should call it a night, huh?" Robin says, faking a yawn. 

Anything to bring some levity to the situation. Anything to avoid picturing one of her best friends cored and gutted, the light leaving his eyes.

Oops, too late. 

"I left my car at the video store, remember?" Steve says and it feels like it's out of nowhere, even though it's the exact opposite. 

"So stay here," Robin says, words ending on a yawn. A real one, this time. 

"But-" Steve starts to argue but then he seems to think better of it since the next word out of his mouth is, "Sure," which is good because there is no way in hell Robin's about to let him go home to that big, empty house all alone tonight, not with things the way they are. Not having to argue about it just saves them both a lot of time.

"Okay then," she says, getting to her feet. "Now that that's settled, I'm going to go pass out. You know where everything is, goodnight." It's such a common thing for her to say she thinks nothing of it; he's stayed over enough times he should almost pay for half the rent. Billy, too.

Then he clears his throat. 

"I kind of don't, actually," he says, sending her heart crashing down past her stomach and into the floor underneath her feet.

"Right," she says, instinctively going for avoiding addressing just how much this all freaks her out.

"The kitchen is there." She points to the small kitchenette that's just off the living room. "The bathroom is there." She points to the first door on the far side of the room. "And the other door is my bedroom and you're not allowed to go in there unless you're trying to save me 'cause the apartment's on fire." 

"Thanks," Steve says. The cracked edge in his voice makes it sound like he knows. Like whether she addressed it or not, it's written all over her face, which makes sense, because hiding her big gay shame aside, she's always been a terrible liar. 

"Yeah, no problem. Goodnight," she says and heads to her room for the night.

Or that's what she means to do, anyway. That's what she wants to do. She wants to brush her hair and brush her teeth and wash her face, take her clothes off and go to bed. 

Instead, she winds up pacing the floor of her bedroom, sock-covered toes scrunching up against the thick, fluffy carpet - the one nice thing in her whole apartment - and worrying. 

She can't stop picturing it. Billy mind-controlled. Billy dead. She can't stop picturing it. She looks over at the grungy, second-hand telephone on her bedside table and almost calls him, she even picks up the receiver and everything but then she puts it down when she remembers it's late and he's in high school and lives with bastards. 

She paces for another ten minutes, brushes her teeth and her hair and tries to convince herself to just go to bed and check on him in the morning. _ It's not like there's anything wrong, _ she tells herself. _ He's alright. He must be. I saw him what, yesterday? _

Ultimately though, panic wins out. Ultimately, she has to see him. She has to know for sure. He has to be okay.

_ And besides, _ she thinks as she slips out past a now sleeping Steve, _ there's more than one reason for him not to be alright right now. _

The drive to Billy's is like being on a rollercoaster, the tension just climbing and climbing and climbing. She hates rollercoasters. And she hates the way the images in her head just keep getting more and more and more terrifying with each and every block that passes like this is some sort of sick game her brain has decided is fun. She can't take it.

She parks a block away and sneaks slowly up the front yard, trying her best to evade detection even though there's nothing to hide behind. She heads to the side of the house, knocks on Billy's window carefully and waits, grateful and not for the first time that his bedroom is on the first floor. 

At first, there's nothing, not a sound coming from anywhere inside the house and the monstrous images start piling up at the corners of her mind again, readying themselves for an attack. 

She's saved by a rustling noise coming from inside Billy's room then a thump. Slowly the window creaks open and Billy sticks his head out, his curls a big, frizzy, flattened mess and his blanket drawn up as close to his face as it'll go. He grunts at her. "I was asleep, fuckwit."

"Oh, don't be a dick," she grunts back. "Now are you gonna come outside or not?" 

She doesn't tell him how badly she needs him to come outside, or why, just drinks in the fact that he's okay, that he's here, that pissed off at her or not, he's alive to be pissed off at her.

He glares at her, his eyes hazy and thick with sleep. "It's too cold out." The way his breath is visible in the air as he speaks does a good job of proving his point, but Robin doesn't care.

"Then I'm coming in," she says. She grits her teeth and starts hefting herself up by the window ledge without waiting for him to move. 

He slams a hand into her face and knocks her back to the ground. "Jesus, stop. Just give me a minute, will you?" 

The window creaks shut and she smiles. 

She hears some more quiet shuffling then the window creaks open again and he climbs out wearing the biggest, ugliest sweater she's ever seen him in. If she's not mistaken, it's not even his. She's pretty sure it's Steve's. 

Billy, for his part, narrows his eyes at her and rubs his hands together. "This better be good," he says. 

She raises an eyebrow but doesn't rise to the bait. "Are you okay?" she asks instead. 

"Seriously?" he snorts. 

She folds her arms across her chest and stuffs her hands into her armpits. "Yes, seriously. Are you okay?" 

"You woke me up for _ this?" _ He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, annoyance radiating off of him with the motion.

"Yeah…" Robin trails off, trying to think of how to both not tell Billy about what's going on like Steve asked her to but also make sure Billy's actually alright. Because that sweater and the fact that he's wearing it outside where people might see him, even just her, suggests that he's not.

"Yeah?" he parrots back at her. He mimics her stance, clearly fully intending to come off as mocking but she can see the hurt etched just underneath the insult. He's not alright, but then that's not surprising. Billy's almost never alright. Not really.

Finally, she settles on saying, "You and Steve were weird yesterday and I just wanted to check on you, jackass."

He sneers and looks away, but she still (just barely) manages to catch the way his eyes go glassy. 

"I'm fine," he says and it's such a thin and hollow excuse she wonders if he believes it himself or if he just said it because he doesn't want to talk to her. 

Either way, she reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder and gives him a look she hopes expresses some form of, "I'm here for you," or, maybe, "Stop lying," or maybe just, "I'm so glad you're alive, even if I can't tell you why."

She isn't entirely sure. 

But, whatever she'd meant to say must get lost in translation because he looks down at her hand on his shoulder and when he looks back up at her any softness that might have been there before is gone, replaced with something hard and challenging. 

This isn't an uncommon response from him and she knows that he can't help it, but it does what it always does - it makes her want to challenge him right back so she finds herself saying, "Oh, please, it's too late and I'm too tired and it's too cold for this sort of crap," without entirely meaning to. 

Even so, whether she'd meant to say that or not, she follows it up by squaring her shoulders and matching his glare with one of her own. He's never scared her before and there's nothing he can do to make her start being afraid of him now. 

And then, just like Steve had earlier, Billy deflates. "Just drop it, Robin, alright?" 

He edges a step back and before she can stop him he's crawling back inside and locking the window, leaving her standing outside. Alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve owning big, ugly sweaters and Billy wearing them is a thing for me.
> 
> I also have a tumblr now! [ Come talk to me please.](https://gideongrace.tumblr.com/)


	5. Everything you don't know

_ Sunday, November 3rd, 1985 _

  
  


Steve wakes up aching and the second he sits up, eyes still closed, Robin says, "Look at that! He's finally awake!" 

He opens his eyes and tries to give her a dirty look but he's too tired to bother. He shuts his eyes and slumps against the couch then finds himself sniffing at the air. He smells something indistinct and not at all like bacon frying.

"What time is it and what are you making?" he groans. Clearly, she doesn't know that the only thing that should be fried in the morning is bacon and he finds it deeply disturbing.

"Ten thirty and veggies and toast." 

He grunts. "I'm not eating that."

"And who asked you?" Robin says. "This is for me." 

He cracks an eye open to see her spin seamlessly from the counter to the fridge, spatula in hand. She grabs some butter out of the fridge, humming as she goes. She's got her hair in a loose ponytail and has on sweatpants with a hole in the knee on one side and an ambiguous stain on the other. 

It's the most casual and relaxed he's ever seen her and he can't help but stare a little. There's no question that she's one of his best friends, but he still can't help but feel a little like he's seeing something he hasn't earned, not really. Not yet.

She catches him staring and raises an eyebrow as she turns the stove off. "What?" 

He says nothing, he doesn't even try. Not that… not that he'd have any idea what to say, what words to use, even if he wanted to, anyway. 

Because how do you tell someone something like we're friends but I shouldn't be here, don't let me see all of that without starting a fight?

She shakes her head at him and scrapes her pan-fried veggies onto a plate and he makes a face, pretending the food is what's bothering him.

She rolls her eyes and sits down with her plate at her rickety kitchen table. After a couple of bites, she points vaguely at the cupboards. "There's cereal, if you want," she says. 

He gets to his feet and nods, walking into the tiny kitchenette and experiencing a split-second of full body panic when he realizes he has no idea where the cereal is. "Farthest on the left," she says, without him asking and without looking. 

He grabs a box of whatever's closest - Lucky Charms, which is probably his least favorite cereal in the whole world, but it'll do - and chances opening the next cupboard over for bowls. He breathes a sigh of relief he hopes she doesn't hear when he finds them there.

"So," he says as he sits down across from her with his bowl of cereal in hand. "What are your plans for the day?"

His words have an eagerness to them that he doesn't at all feel. What he actually feels is... well, it's not that he feels scared, exactly. It's more like there's a layer of plastic between himself and the world. Like he's been shrink-wrapped. 

He honestly isn't sure if he wants to remove it or hide behind it, but Robin sort of makes that decision for him when she says, "Well, we don't have to work until tonight, so I was thinking the Library? We could go try and figure out what's wrong with you." 

She pushes the vegetables around on her plate and makes a face before getting up and walking to the fridge and grabbing, of all the things, the ketchup. She dumps enough of it onto her plate that half the plate turns red before she dips her toast in it and nods like that's exactly what was missing. 

He wants to argue with her about her comment, about there being something "wrong" with him but instead, he points at the ketchup to change the subject. "Okay, but who eats ketchup with breakfast? Who puts ketchup on_ toast_?" 

Robin narrows her eyes and points at the handful of cereal he's got raised halfway to his face. "Who eats cereal without milk?"

He shoves the cereal into his mouth and chews slowly. "Lazy people," he says. _ And people who don't know where the spoons are. _

Robin huffs. "Whatever." She piles some veggies onto her toast before dipping it in the lake of ketchup again. "Do you have Dustin's number?" 

She waves the toast around, scattering some of the veggies to the floor in the process. She doesn't notice. "It's Sunday and I know that kid has nothing better to do than help us dig through some old books."

Steve sighs and lowers his head, shoving both hands into his hair and, he's sure, getting cereal crumbs all up in it. 

"Steve?" Robin asks. "Dustin's number?" 

"Right," he says. He sits up straight. "Dustin. Library. Fixing this. Right." 

Robin reaches across the table to put one of her hands on top of his. "We're gonna figure this out," she says softly. 

"Right," he says. He wishes he believed her. 

\---

Steve spends four hours at the library staring at books with titles he knows he's never going to remember and full of information he doesn't understand before deciding that if he doesn't get up and go do something else for a little while his eyes are going to straight up liquefy in his skull. 

"I'm…" he says as he stands. He has no plan for the end of that sentence. 

"Uh-huh?" Dustin asks. He has one highlighter stuffed between his ear and his hat and another in his hand. He was thrilled by the idea of spending the day researching in the library. He packed five water bottles, six different colors of highlighter, ten pens and four different notebooks, one for each of them plus an extra, just in case. 

But no lunch. 

Steve stretches and smiles. Getting lunch is something he can do. "I'm gonna go get us something to eat," he says, rubbing at Dustin's hat in the same sort of way he'd ruffle his hair if he could reach it.

"Sure," Dustin says, eyes still glued to whatever book he's buried in. 

"Don't forget that I'm allergic to onions," Robin says, like he should know. 

He doesn't tell her he didn't. 

"Sure," he says before quickly backtracking out of the room. 

He wanders outside and takes a deep breath, several in fact, and savors the first moment he's been alone in what feels like days. 

He starts walking towards the parking lot on instinct before realizing that Robin drove them here and his car is still all the way back at Family Video. He pulls his jacket a little tighter around himself before heading down the street, deciding that he'll walk to somewhere downtown to get them lunch. Burgers, maybe. From that new place he hasn't tried yet. Yeah, that'll do.

He walks along the main road, hands in his pockets, just trying to enjoy the sunshine and the crisp air and for a little while, he manages. Manages to be as easy and as carefree as he used to be so good at pretending to be, manages to just enjoy it. 

But it doesn't take long for the twitchiness from earlier to settle back into his skin, itching, and whining and making him look into the windows of every shop he passes to inspect them for even the tiniest of changes. Because who knows what else is different?

Nothing seems to be, but… how would he know?

Did Robin tell him she's allergic to onions and he just forgot or did she tell some other him, the one who spent years huddling up next to her on the bleachers at football games, the one who knew her childhood bedroom and her hidden notebook full of Molly Ringwald pictures?

Then he really starts punishing himself. What happened to that version of him?

Did he disappear?

Are they blending together, merging and becoming one?

Is _ he _ going to disappear?

Because he didn't remember Robin's allergies but he also didn't know she had a secret notebook full of magazine cut-outs of girls four days ago and now he does. So.

Where does that leave him exactly? _ Who _ does that leave him exactly?

As he walks into the new burger place he bemoans the fact that he's the one who has to think of these things, the one who has to deal with these things. Because he knows he's not up to the challenge. He knows he's not near smart enough to pull all of this apart and figure it out. He's brave enough to handle monsters and he can punch stuff, he's good at that, regardless of what Dustin thinks.

But he's not smart enough for this. He knows he's not. And there's no shame in that, not everyone's a brain, but he's not and now more than ever it's a problem. 

He walks to the front and puts in his order, three burgers, one with no onions and extra ketchup, three orders of fries and three Cokes, then stands back and waits. 

He tries not to pick himself to pieces in the process but settles for picking apart his cuticles instead. He grabs the order once it's ready and pays the girl at the front, giving her the mutual service industry worker commiseration nod and setting out, again trying to act like there's nothing bigger to his world than working a shitty, low paying job and going nowhere with his life. 

It almost works, but two stores down he runs into Nancy and any subtle semblance of normalcy he'd managed to paint over himself crackles and fades so instantaneously it might as well have never been there at all.

"Steve, hey," Nancy says, voice all soft and eyes all big and he can't help but think_, I so don't have the time for this right now. _

Instead, he says, "Nancy, hey, how's it going?" and lifts the takeout bag in a weird, clunky half-wave thing he instantly wishes he could forget ever doing. 

"Oh, you know," she says. She pairs it with the universal shrug for it's-terrible-but-I'm-trying and he hates that he finds himself feeling bad for her, empathizing with her. 

He nods. "Yeah, me too," he says, adding in his own terrible-but-trying shrug and meaning it. 

A silence that's part awkward and part mutual understanding falls and just as she's turning to leave he finds himself asking, "So how's Jonathan?" 

He regrets it almost instantly but also… he doesn't. He wants to know and why the hell shouldn't he ask? It's been long enough. 

"He's…" She twirls a strand of hair around her finger and sighs. "I miss him." 

"Oh," Steve says. "Uh…" he tries but he's got nothing. He has no idea if what she's just said means they've broken up and she misses him or that she just misses him because he isn't here. 

"I mean," she says, shaking her head as she seems to realize how vague what she just said was. "We're still together." 

She looks down at her feet, her hair falling over her face but not enough to hide the blush spreading on her cheeks. "And I miss him." 

"I'm sorry," Steve says, figuring it's at least a little better than saying, "Oh," again or saying nothing at all. 

She looks up at him with this little crinkle between her eyes, the one he remembers he used to love, and she shakes her head again. "No, that should be me," she says. 

He doesn't get it.

"I…" she breathes out, fingers suddenly gripping tight to the hem of her skirt. "I never really apologized to you and I should have. I…" She sighs again, but this time she sounds determined, and he remembers how much he used to love that, too, her determination. 

He expected this to hurt a whole lot more than it does, seeing her always has, but this time is different. It's more like running his fingers over an old scar than an active pain. 

"I treated you really badly," she says and he finds himself nodding because yeah, she did.

But he also finds himself not minding that much anymore. Too much has happened between then and now for it to be the big, lumbering giant in the room that it used to be.

"I guess I just…" She looks just past him, looks wistful and he wonders why. "I was mad. You never quite looked at me like you looked at…" She shakes her head again and her fingers lift off from the hem of her skirt to push her hair behind her ear. The sadness that resonates out from her eyes reminds him of the way Billy looked at him as he walked out the sliding glass living room door a few days ago and it makes him gulp.

"I should go," she says just as he's debating asking her who she means, who she thinks he was looking at even though he's already pretty sure he knows. 

The memories come quickly enough after she runs off that her lack of a real goodbye and the floral scent of her perfume are still lingering in the air.

But this time he isn't just seeing things, he's feeling them too. He sees himself and Billy on the basketball team together, sees himself watching Billy in the hall, in the locker room, the cafeteria and the parking lot and he isn't sure why he's seeing these things when they're no different than the memories he already has. 

He remembers all too well the charged, electric feeling that would pull at him like Billy was a magnet making it so he couldn't look away, even if he wanted to. 

The memories keep speeding by and he starts seeing things he doesn't recognize: Billy and him sitting together on the bus to an away game and laughing, Billy and him sharing a cigarette under the bleachers, Billy and him kissing in his room late at night, the only light in the room coming from his bedside table lamp. The light makes Billy's hair look like a halo and he watches as he gets to touch it, gets to actually have the feeling of running his hands through it, of getting to know how soft it is.

It leaves him thinking about the way he felt the first time he saw Billy climb out of his Camaro with his stupid, practically painted on jeans and that stupid smirk, like he could, and fully intended to, do whatever he wanted. 

He's hit with another wave of feeling like he's being dragged under, like there was, like there is, nothing he can do about it but watch and want.

It's not a feeling Steve wants to think about, especially considering everything that came after, like Billy insinuating that he was doing something with his thirteen-year-old sister and then the fight where Billy all but tried to kill him. 

Then there's the fact that Billy got turned into an actual, honest to god monster and died and it's all just best left stuffed into a dark back corner of his mind to slowly grow mold and rot until he can no longer remember any of it. Because the idea that there's this other world where things played out differently is something he can't handle. 

Because if Steve knows one thing for sure it's that he doesn't get what he wants. It didn't work out with Nancy, it didn't work out with going to college and it isn't going to work out here.

Period.

He realizes mid-step he's been walking without noticing and raises a hand to his nose to find it's bleeding again. He wipes it off with the sleeve of his jacket the best he can before continuing on his way back to the library and to Robin and Dustin.

\---

That feeling Steve had been counting on, the feeling of having accomplished something, of having contributed something to the team is torn to shreds the second Robin looks in her takeout bag and frowns. 

"What?" He knows she can't tell just by looking at the burger's wrapper but he says, "I made sure to order no onions. And I asked for extra ketchup." 

She leans back in her chair and crosses her arms over her chest before saying, "I'm a vegetarian."

It gets added to the list of things Steve realizes he was supposed to know but doesn't. 

"Oh," he mutters limply just as Dustin grabs for her bag and steals the burger out of it.

"I'll take it," Dustin says. He's already got it unwrapped and has it halfway to his lips as the words come out, clearly not intending for anyone to argue. 

No one does. 

"It's fine," Robin says, shifting so she's slouching forward just as Steve sinks into a chair across from her. "It's fine, I'll just eat the fries." 

And like, she says it's fine, she clearly wants it to be but even more clearly, it's _ not. _

Steve pushes his fries at her as a peace offering and she takes them with a smile, but it's flimsy enough he knows she's still upset. Knows it doesn't really have anything to do with the food itself and everything to do with why he didn't know he was supposed to get her a salad instead.

He wants to crawl under the table and hide there forever, wants the Librarian to come over and kick them out, give them a distraction but she doesn't. 

But then, the new Librarian here, Mrs. Carpenter, or at least Steve _ thinks _ that's her name - she's never cared about anything as far as Steve's aware. Even stuff she should care about, like people eating greasy takeout right next to open library books doesn't catch her attention.

Dustin, at least, seems to think of this at the same time as he does and pushes the book in front of him further up the table to spare it from any damage the food might cause, though the smudge of dark red barbecue sauce he's got on the hand he uses to push the book almost makes the attempt pointless.

"So, this is interesting," Dustin says, his tone pointedly blank. "It seems like there's a lot of little details that are different." 

"Yeah," Robin says. She scrubs a hand through her hair then snaps a french fry aggressively in two before biting down on both halves. "Real interesting." 

Dustin rolls his eyes heavenward before sucking a breath in through his nose. "I mean it might help us figure this out, if we can figure out how much is different." 

At the idea of cataloging every single difference between the two worlds, Steve's skin starts crawling towards the door, not seemingly terribly interested in whether or not the rest of his body comes along for the ride. 

He really doesn't want to, especially when those differences involve a particular someone with long blonde curls and blue eyes that he'd really rather not think about just right now. Or maybe ever again, if he can at all avoid it.

"I don't see how," Robin says. 

She looks out at the table of books in front of them and sinks a little lower in her chair. They must have gone through every single book in the Library that had even the tiniest, most remote connection to magic, alternate timelines, even past life experiences, but so far none of it has helped and suddenly Steve knows it's not just him that's been exhausted by the search. 

"We can't give up, guys," Dustin says, hopeful as ever and Steve hates him for it. 

"This isn't -" Steve says. He feels more than exhausted, he's exasperated and he's more than had enough. "This isn't something books are gonna fix."

He sneers as he waves a hand at the pile of books in front of them, knowing full well he couldn't tell anybody anything about what's in any of them, even the ones he read but also knowing he's not wrong. 

Dustin looks hurt, like he couldn't be more hurt if Steve had insulted him personally, but Steve keeps going anyway. "Maybe this can't be fixed because there's nothing to _ be _ fixed," he says. 

"But-" Dustin starts but Robin holds a hand up, stopping him. 

"I agree with Steve," she says. "Maybe the best thing to do is just…" She sighs. "Wait it out. If nothing else happens, then, maybe it just is what it is." 

Steve doesn't like the idea. Doesn't like the possibility of replacing someone else, doesn't like the possibility of being replaced, doesn't like the conversation he had with Nancy, doesn't like this world at all, but he also knows that whatever happens, he's stuck in it. And there's nothing for any of them to do. 

Because what would they do, anyway? If they could? They're just a bunch of teenagers and this isn't like a monster they can figure out and kill, this isn't a code they can crack, this is just something that happened and now they have to live with it, whatever it is. 

There's no going back.

"Okay," Dustin says, the look on his face illustrating that the turn things have taken is anything but. "I don't like this but if that's how you both feel we can take a break."

Robin groans. "This isn't taking a break. We're done." 

She looks at Steve and Steve can't help but worry if what she means is that what she's done with is him.

"Yeah, I got that," Dustin says on an exhale. He looks at the ceiling again but this time it takes longer for him to come back down. 

"I'm sorry, man, I just can't deal with this," Steve says the words to Dustin but he's looking at Robin, trying to work up the nerve to ask her if even though they're giving up on this, they're not giving up on each other. He hopes she isn't starting to think of him as the stranger wearing her best friend's face rather than as her best friend. Because he's still her best friend. He's shaky on a whole lot of things right now, but he's still her best friend and she's still his. That's another one of the things he knows for sure.

The way she draws her leg back underneath the table makes him worry she disagrees, but then her leg shoots out and she kicks him in the shin and he feels nothing but relieved. "It's okay, you know, about the burger," she says with a smile that sits perfectly on her face. "You'll remember for next time." 

Next time. Like there's going to be a next time. Steve kicks her back and offers her a smile of his own. "Totally," he says. "Next time."

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I researched breakfast cereals for this chapter. It was fun. :) The amount of shit google docs tried to give me as I was trying to post this chapter was less so, but. Oh, well.


	6. You can drop the act

_ Monday, Nov. 4th, 1985 _

It's the first break of the day and Billy's first chance to smoke but before he can even get his cigarette lit he hears some girl saying, "You know he was only ever with me the one time?" 

He leans in closer to the wall he's leaning against and suddenly feels grateful he chose to stand under this particular open window. Or he is until the next thing he hears is, "Yeah, he's Billy Hargrove, what did you expect?" 

The unlit cigarette falls from between his fingers. He continues to listen as the first girl says, "No, like he went down on me the one time and then never again. And like, he never asked for anything in return. Don't you think that's odd?"

Billy wishes he recognized the voice, but he doesn't. He isn't even sure if it would matter if he did, it's not like he keeps a running list of all the girls he's had sex with, which is a decision he's now starting to regret.

Then there's a noise like a bathroom stall door slamming open and a voice that's recent enough for him to recognize saying, "I had full-on, shake the walls, scream-until-you-break sex with him last week. Twice," and he can't help but smile momentarily.

There's the _ click-click-click _ of high heels on tile then he hears Jessica saying, "Maybe you just weren't good enough to warrant the effort a second time."

The first girl says nothing but her friend laughs obnoxiously as the sound of high heels _ click-click-clicks _ away until a door swings open and slams shut.

Billy sinks against the wall feeling simultaneously grateful, confused and terrified all at once. Why did Jessica do that? Did she do it to bolster her own reputation or his? And if it was for him, how's she going to make him pay for it? Because girls like her are always making guys pay for it. 

Either way, he knows the game he has to play, so when he catches her standing by her locker later that afternoon he walks straight over. He leans up against the open door of her locker and smiles at her in a way nobody walking past the two of them could miss.

She smiles back with so much fire and so much raw _need_ that he almost feels bad.

"You can come over to my place later." She says this with no introduction, no small talk, nothing but the offer. "My parents usually go to bed around eleven." She twists her ponytail around her hand and pulls on it and he makes a point of licking his lips as a showy form of response, but the smile she drags out of him is genuine. She has a truly respectable amount of confidence.

"I will try my best to wait until then," he says before leaning in and kissing her, softly at first, then harder. He ends it by biting on her lower lip and strutting off. It should give everybody watching more than enough to talk about, at least.

\---

After school and after he's dropped Max off, Billy drives to the record store, like he does every Monday afternoon. It's a ritual between him and Robin and one he can't break. He knows she won't either, though he does get a little annoyed when she's ten minutes late and he makes a point of telling her that. It's too cold at this point in the day to even take his hands out of his pockets, what was he supposed to do, just wait for her with nothing to do indefinitely? She grunts at him but gives him no more response than that and the two of them slip into silence. It's sort of part of the ritual of it at this point, the silence as they enter the shop.

Because some people have churches and some people have libraries, but them? They have this. This crusty little shop crammed into the tail end of the last possible block of a tiny little road that only just barely counts as being downtown and basically only seems to exist if you already know that it's there. Its' got tiny windows so grimy they're basically just part of the wall and there isn't a square inch anywhere that isn't crammed full of milk crates carefully loaded with vinyl, tables with boxes full of tapes or bookcases stuffed with autobiographies, artist histories and sheet music. Then there's that smell that's so strong it hits you full force the second the door is open an inch and...

Billy's never been one for churches, figures if there's a God he gave up on him a long time ago. He gets the appeal of libraries or at least the feeling some people have about the smell of old books if it's similar to the way he feels about the smell of old vinyl and cracking the plastic off of a new tape just before he puts it in.

He's grateful he has this. That _they_ have this. This place that makes him feel safe, makes him feel invisible, like he doesn't have to matter, like whatever's going on in his life it's alright because he can always find something new to bury his pain in, something new to anchor him to his life even when he's so far gone he's not sure how attached to it he is or even wants to be. 

He feels that familiar, same ease spread over his skin the second his feet cross the threshold and he can't help but sigh with the relief of it as he does. 

Wes, the shop owner, gives him a funny look for this but says nothing. They've been coming here for about a year now and Billy can count on one hand the number of sentences he's heard Wes say in all that time. He likes Wes. 

Robin bumps him on the shoulder as they split off from each other, but says nothing either, leaving the only sound in the shop Leonard Cohen singing quietly about being terrible at love. Or at least that's what Billy thinks he's singing about. With Leonard Cohen, it's sort of hard to tell.

As he starts heading for the metal section in the back he winds up running across Wes' anemic attempt at a pop section in his attempt to get there. 

He looks at the vinyls for Wham! and Madonna and tries to feel grateful this isn't something Steve ever comes to, feel grateful that Wes has all but banned Steve from the shop for his truly god awful musical taste, but mostly all he feels is disappointed. Disappointed Steve now probably has no idea this shop exists. Disappointed there's a difference between Steve now and Steve then. Just… disappointed. With everything.

But he takes a deep breath, inhales the awful, beautiful, musty scent of the place he loves so much and gets to work. He splits his time between flipping through the vinyl and the tapes, busies himself with dreaming of the day he'll be able to have a record collection because someday he'll have a home to play them in. 

After some searching, he finds Iron Maiden's first album, _Iron Maiden_ and Motley Crue's _Theatre of Pain, _neither of which he has the tapes of yet and takes them to the front.

Robin picks her way over to him slowly and casually knocks a shoulder against his. She's got The Cure's _ The Head on the Door _ and that Christian Death album she's been hunting for just about a year now, _ Catastrophe Ballet_. He can't stand Christian Death, thinks they're trite and that Rozz Williams sounds tired, but they've had that argument before. And besides, they both know that what he really means is the singer sounds gay and it's depressing as hell that even famous people have to hide who they are.

"You ready to go?" Robin asks, easy as anything. Like the past couple of days never happened. Like this is any other week and Billy lets himself sink into that, lets himself believe it, lets himself pretend for a moment that after this he'll do the other thing he always does on Mondays and go share his new tapes with Steve, try to forcibly get Steve to have at least _some_ base level of musical appreciation and not caring if he fails to impart any because it's _ Steve_. And any time spent with Steve is good, no matter how much he might pretend otherwise.

He almost believes that's what he'll get to do next, too, almost nods at Robin, almost, but then he remembers he hasn't got any money left which leads to remembering _ why _ he hasn't got any money left and he has to put his tapes down. "I don't actually have the money for these this week."

Robin grabs the tapes he'd picked before he can stop her and puts them on the counter. "I'll get them for you then," she says just as easily.

She doesn't ask him for an explanation of why he doesn't have any money and he isn't sure he could lie to her if she did.

As it is he's already halfway to telling her the truth, telling her that it's because Steve was gone and he couldn't take it. Steve was _ gone _ and he spent all of his money to get him back and it didn't _ work_.

These words, this truth, bubbles up against his lips as Wes gives him the side-eye, takes Robin's cash and hands him his tapes and hands Robin hers. The words bubble up but Billy shoves them down as far as they can go.

She doesn't need to know about this and he really doesn't need to tell her.

They head outside and are about to part ways when Robin puts a hand on his arm.

"I'm here if you need me," she says. He knows she means it but he can't risk it. Can't risk breaking her with what he knows, what he's done. 

"I know," he says. She gives him a look that says, "Do you?" but she lets it, and him, go.

At home, he wanders around aimlessly for an hour before settling on watching television until it's late enough to head to Jessica's. 

It takes all of five minutes for Max to show up and park herself right next to him on the couch. 

"What do you want?" he grunts. He stares at the tv, pretending to be fully enthralled by Tom Selleck running across some beach with his ridiculous shirt and even more ridiculous mustache.

"Nothing," Max says.

"I'm watching something you hate," Billy says. He knows it's not his best effort, but it's been a long day and he only barely cares enough right now not to just shove her off the couch and leave the room.

"You don't know what I hate," she says, tone haughty in a way that were it anybody else, he'd respect. Coming from her it just grates. 

He flips the channel. "I'll find something you hate," he says as he flips it again.

He flips through a few more channels before she says, "Man, knock it off." She sounds exhausted in a way no fourteen-year-old should be capable of and that he remembers all too well from experience. 

He also knows that she's baiting him and that he shouldn't bite, knows he should just get up and walk away. That'd be the smart thing to do. But his curiosity, or maybe more specifically his need to always poke at everything until it bleeds is always there, simmering away in the background, waiting for him to tip the pot over and spill it.

Some days he manages to avoid that. Not today, though. Today he's beyond caring, probably was five minutes after waking up, definitely was after what he overheard outside the girls bathroom this morning.

"What?" he asks, voice low as he can make it.

He still doesn't look at her.

"You can stop with the tough guy bullshit," she says, sounding certain underneath all of the exhaustion and it's the certainty that slides in under all his rough edges and slices, leaving hundreds of tiny, hairline cuts just deep enough to burn.

He wants to curl his hands into fists but won't give her the satisfaction.

"And I'll repeat myself, what?" he says.

He keeps flicking through the channels, even landing back on _ Magnum PI _again but he keeps going, keeps hitting the buttons anyway. This is going nowhere good and he knows it.

Max sighs like she's the most long-suffering person on the face of the planet and says, "Now that I know you're a human being with a heart," she pauses to reach over and poke him in the chest just to illustrate her point, "you can knock it off." The way she leans back into her seat after doing this, the smug smile he can see radiating from her as she moves - it makes him grit his teeth. 

"What do you want, Max?" he asks again. 

"Nothing, asshole. Just to watch tv. That okay with you?" 

He says, "Whatever," like nothing about this is bothering him whatsoever. Like maybe that'll work.

"What Steve loves about you I'll never understand." She says it quietly, but that she says it in the house is enough. 

He twists to face her, fists clenched, panic boiling and ready to split into rage at any second and he whispers, "Are you _trying_ to get me killed?"

Max rolls her eyes and he wishes he could say that she's faking it, that he's scaring her and she's just faking like she's not bothered but he knows he'd just be lying to himself. "Oh, calm down," she says. "No one else is home." 

"You don't know that for sure," Billy hisses, terror pulsing up and down his spine like a caged animal. He rubs his free hand up and down his pants leg and pretends he isn't breaking out into a cold sweat.

"Yes, I do. I checked," Max says. He refuses to look at her but he can feel her eyes burning into him.

"Why the fuck would you -"

"Like I said, I wanted to watch tv." 

For some reason, that's the last straw. Billy throws the remote onto her lap, leaving the tv playing some dumb ad for… he doesn't care what anymore. "Okay, here you go." 

He's barely a step away from the couch before she's spitting out, "With you, jackass. I wanted to watch tv _ with you._"

He sits back down and she puts on some dumb cartoon he doesn't recognize, something bright and obnoxious. 

"How you have a boyfriend and I don't is another thing I will never understand," she says. She says it quietly enough that no one outside the room could hear her, but he still winds up needing to breathe in slowly through his nose and out his mouth.

"You and…" he starts but fails. He can't remember the name of the dork she's usually with. 

"Lucas," she fills in. 

"You guys not together anymore?"

"He's being a dick. Again," she says, like Billy should have some sort of context for that. 

"That's because guys are dicks," Billy says, going for his best attempt at supportive. 

Max snorts. "You would know." He can't disagree. She's not remotely wrong. Then she adds, "You found a nice one, though." 

He feels the words like a punch to the gut. He's taken actual punches that have hurt less. 

"I did," he says. 

She waits a moment before chancing her next question. "How's that going, by the way?"

He looks over at her and sees the way her hand is gripped to her knee, the forceful way she's keeping her eyes glued to the tv and feels that familiar rock settling itself into his stomach.

He's such an unrepentant asshole. 

"You couldn't have just asked me that? You had to go through all this first?" He might be an asshole, no, he definitely is, but that doesn't make her not a pain in the ass, too.

She half-turns so she's facing him and he fights not to look away. "You're you, so yes."

He grunts. "Whatever. And it's fine."

She looks at him dead on and refuses to let him flinch or move away, she just sizes him up and it's absolutely brutal. "You know you're a really terrible liar, right?" she says, speaking the words like the fact she thinks she knows they are. 

She's baiting him again and he refuses to rise to it this time so he keeps her gaze, doesn't waver, doesn't flinch. "I'm not talking about this with you," he says, matching her strike for strike in terms of pure brutality.

At this point, he figures he'll just deal with it. His plan failed. It's fine. He's fine.

He'll deal with it. 

Smartly, Max gives up.

"Fine," she says. "But you still owe me so we're still watching my show."

"Just so I have a frame of reference," he says, "how long are you gonna be using that argument?"

She smiles so widely the glow of the tv almost reflects off her teeth. "The rest of your life," she says. 

"Good to know."

\---

At a quarter to eleven, Billy slips out, gets into his car and drives over to Jessica's. He climbs the large oak tree outside her bedroom window and knocks as best he can without falling out of the tree. 

What she's wearing when she opens the window is not remotely what he expected. She's wearing a loose, long sleeve t-shirt and cotton pajama pants and her hair is hanging loose instead of being in its' usual high ponytail.

From what he can see she's not wearing any makeup, either. He'd say she must have forgotten he was coming but then the way her face lights up when she sees him says she didn't and it leaves him feeling confused. 

"Come on, come on," she hisses excitedly, waving her hand in an exaggerated circular motion when he doesn't move. "Come in." 

He shimmies himself inside the room and shakes himself off, then smiles at her languidly and starts removing his shirt. 

She giggles like she did last time but surprises him again by putting a hand to his chest, stopping him. "You _really_ don't need to do that," she says softly. 

She backtracks to the bed with these ridiculously slinky moves and he figures whatever game she's playing, he'll play too. He kicks off his shoes and makes a show of following her and again, she giggles. "No, _really,_ you don't need to _do_ that," she says. Her voice has lost at least half of its' usual bounce.

"Okay…" He's starting to feel awkward, exposed even though his shirt's still half-buttoned and all he's taken off is his shoes.

"It's okay, I get it," she says. "You don't need to be worried, it's not like you're obvious and it's not like I'm going to tell anyone or anything, just, like, I get it. And it's okay. I get it," she says, the words spilling out of her fast enough that he only really catches about half of them but it's enough to make him start backing towards the window. 

"It's a good act, but I get it. You don't like girls, right?" she says.

He bumps up against the window sill and considers flipping a leg over it without looking away from her. His shoes are still in the middle of the room but he doesn't care. If he doesn't say anything that makes everything easier to deny tomorrow.

In his head he starts planning out at least six different things he could say at school to throw this off course, starting with that she's crazy.

"Billy, wait!"

She rushes up to him and he almost falls through the window but she reaches out and grabs his arms just in time to steady him. There's this desperate look in her eyes that has him suddenly thinking that maybe he's got it wrong, maybe he's not the school's only remaining all-star actor. 

"Wait… are _you_ gay?" He says the words so quietly they're almost a mumble, almost not loud enough to be heard as words at all.

Jessica pulls him further into the room. "No, but my sister is," she says. "And it sucks."

A lightbulb fully illuminates above his head and he feels instantly, incredibly ridiculous. He starts stuffing his feet into his shoes and buttoning up his shirt, preparing to run. He can scale the tree in a minute, hell, he can jump if he has to, he's dealt with worse. 

Her eyes go wide. "No!"

She puts a hand to her lips and he can't avoid noticing the way the shade of pink she's painted her nails almost exactly matches the pink of her lips. She's pink overload.

"Oh, no, sorry. I meant it sucks because my parents don't talk to her anymore and I miss her and I can't go see her and I can't tell anyone why." Her shoulders slump. "And that sucks." 

Billy purses his lips, swallows, says nothing. He doesn't know how to re-align his worldview after so many sharp left turns. 

He tries to put together the way she acted and that she knows he was faking it. The pieces smash together violently in his head and fit. She must have been faking it, too.

"When'd you figure it out?" he asks. 

"Not at first. You're really good at what you do. But then we went to the video store and I saw the way you looked at Steve and then I knew." 

Billy nods. Grunts. Steve. His Achilles heel. 

"Is he dating the girl at the video store?" she asks. 

Billy snorts, almost laughs. "No."

She leads them to sit on the floor in front of her bed.

He lets her.

She bites her lower lip before asking her next question, clearly unsure. "Is he… I mean, maybe I shouldn't ask? I don't know… is he... yours?" 

Billy snorts again. "Not anymore." 

She frowns. The look doesn't suit her. "I'm sorry." 

Billy swallows again, fighting against his instincts. Fighting against his urge to get up and leave. "Are we good?"

She tilts her head to the side, confused for a second, then she smiles when she gets it. "Yeah," she says. She giggles then adds, "I mean you owe me for that completely passionless sex, but other than that, yeah, we're good."

He can't help it. He laughs. 

"I mean," she says, leaning in and wrapping her fingers around his arm like they're old friends. "That was some of my best stuff, you know." 

He smiles. It feels… good. "I could tell," he says.

They spend the next few hours talking about her sister and about Steve (the normal bits, the how they met, how they went from punching to kissing to _ more_) and it feels good. Feels like maybe he's found a way to keep Steve with him, even if he can't actually have him anymore.

\---

The next day before school starts and after Neil and Susan have cleared out, Billy tries calling Eleven again.

It isn't long before someone answers. "Hello?"

He recognizes Eleven's voice in an instant and his whole body freezes like the blood in his veins has been replaced with ice. 

"Hello?" she says again. Then, "If this is some prank call I'm hanging up." 

"Don't!" he shouts. "I... It's… Billy. I…" He doesn't know what to say. He doesn't really know why he called. 

"Hey," she says, familiar in a way he's probably never going to be comfortable with. He doesn't say anything.

"So?" she says, prompting and gentle. He still doesn't know what to say. 

He tries and, "I don't know what's going on," fumbles its' way out of his mouth. 

"You mean like…" she pauses. "With Steve?"

"Yeah." 

"Huh." It takes a long second before she says, "Like how?"

"He doesn't remember anything," he says. It's more than he's been able to say out loud so far but it's still not everything. The words _ what if he's not _ linger in the forefront of his mind and he snaps the thought off before he can finish it. 

"And… you think he won't?" she asks, speaking slowly. He's never sure if this is just how she is, if she always places so much intent behind every single word she chooses or if it's something to do with him. Or worse, if she's just uncomfortable with the subject at hand. Either way, she seems to draw something out of his continued silence and says, "That's not really it, is it?" 

He lets out a pitiful, pathetic noise he hates himself for making. He looks over at the clock on the wall and knows he's going to miss his first class, but feels glad that Susan took Max to school today, something about spending some "girl time" together or whatever, otherwise he'd never hear the end of it. Or worse. 

"I don't know," he says. He's falling apart and becoming pathetically emotional. He might as well just chop his dick off and hand in his man card, at this point.

"I don't know," he says again and his voice cracks in the middle. He sticks the phone between his shoulder and his ear and presses his hands to his eyes. Definitely pathetic.

"Billy, I…," she says. "No." She sucks in a breath. "I saw… he might not remember, but nothing could change what I saw."

"What?"

She sucks in another breath, a bigger one this time. "Do you want to know what snapped him out of it? What broke the Mindflayer's hold on him?"

Billy, again, doesn't say anything and she blows out all the breath she'd been drawing in. "It was you. I showed him his happiest memory and it was kissing you." 

"I need to go now," Billy says. "Bye."

He gently places the receiver back in the cradle as something inside him wrenches free and shatters into a million tiny pieces. The shrapnel embeds itself everywhere and it _ hurts._

He then sinks to the floor and cries like the little baby he's become.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *evil laugh* 
> 
> Also...
> 
> I have a lot of music related feelings and the scene in the record shop was probably my favorite so far. I think Robin would have good taste in music and this was a good excuse to stick some of my favorite bands in there.
> 
> Also also, I am never going to get over how in this fic and lots of other ones Steve can't sing/has super bad taste in music but it turns out Joe Keery is a super talented singer. It's hilarious.


	7. I want you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [nerdygirlbbse2000](http://nerdygirl2000bbse.tumblr.com) on tumblr for helping me pick the song for this chapter! And to [LazyBaker](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyBaker/pseuds/LazyBaker)  
for other research stuff! :)
> 
> Lastly, just a heads up, but part of this chapter shows the after effects of abuse and if you want to avoid reading that just skip the section dated Wednesday, April 10th, 1985.

_ Saturday, June 29th, 1985 _

It's a thought he's had before, but Steve finds himself thinking that kissing Billy is like kissing sunshine that's caught on fire. The fact that they could get caught at any moment only adds to it.

But then he's almost to the point of not caring by now. He doubts his parents would even notice at this point if it came out that their one and only son was queer, if the whole town was talking about it, if everyone saw. 

He knows they can't let anyone see them, of course. And he knows why they can't. He knows it isn't safe for Billy, knows he'd get more than just ignored or disowned. He knows Billy would get hurt. He knows Billy might get killed.

He knows it isn't safe for people like them anywhere, not even in big cities, not even in California, no matter how much Billy talks about it being so much better there than here. Not that being better than Hawkins, Indiana is exactly the highest bar to cross.

Still, they have this. These stolen kisses in bathrooms and in their cars when they're parked outside of town and right now, in the storage shed at the pool, the smell of chlorine burning Steve's nose as Billy presses him up against the shelf at the back of the room, his hands dangerously close to the waistband of Steve's shorts, tempting, taunting, but not moving any closer. Not here. Not safe.

But still, Steve wishes. Still, Steve _ wants. _

He pours himself into the kiss, curls his fingers into Billy's hair and fights the urge to moan, to make noise. The pool's not open for another fifteen minutes but they still can't make any noise, just in case.

They can't ever be heard, can't ever be seen and Steve tries to push away how angry that makes him, then tries to put that anger into the kiss, wrapping his fingers into Billy's hair tighter and pulling, but that just excites Billy, makes him push up harder against Steve in a way that makes Steve forget everything up to and very nearly including his own name. 

Still, he needs more. He needs so much more.

He runs one hand down to Billy's shoulder then draws the other one up on the other side and digs his fingers into the muscles there. Billy sighs into his mouth and it's almost a moan, almost enough to break their "no noise" rule and Steve has to pull away. 

He leans his forehead against Billy's, completely unable to stop a smile from lighting up his whole face.

"I…" he pants. He needs more of Billy, he always does, but he also needs to not be fired from his job. "I have to go to work," he says. 

Billy's response to this is to pout, his lower lip jutting out so enticingly that it takes a truly massive amount of effort for Steve not to lean in and bite it. 

"You could always be late," Billy says, voice husky and entirely ridiculous with how hard he's trying. Like after all these months he still thinks he has to try to get or to keep Steve's attention. Like he ever did.

"I have to go to work," Steve says again, like repeating it will change how he feels at all, make him less likely to just throw his hands up in the air, decide fuck it and lock the door so he can spend all day in this tiny, cramped supply shed with Billy.

Because he wants to. He honestly can't think of a better way to spend his day than to be wrapped around Billy, touching him everywhere, mapping out every inch of skin and noting the corresponding reactions. Steve's never been much of a student, but when it comes to studying Billy he's dedicated like figuring out which spots on Billy's skin draw out which facial expressions, which touches make Billy's hands grip at his hips and which touches make Billy grip at his hair and which touches make Billy kiss him like they're drowning holds the answers to the universe. 

And maybe they do. Maybe Billy holds the answers to the universe just underneath his skin.

Or maybe he just holds the answers to Steve's universe. 

Either way, it's the most enjoyable way to spend his time Steve's ever found and it makes leaving almost impossible. 

Literally. Steve has to think about losing his job, about potentially being homeless, about his grandmother calling with her nasty, raspy voice and harassing him about how he, "Had such promise, once," even just to force himself to turn away. 

"I'll see you after my shift is over, yeah? We could meet on the old side road by Steel Metal Works?" he says as he squares his shoulders, prepares himself to step back out into the world and put on the Steve Harrington mask everyone knows and… doesn't really respect anymore post-Nancy, but still. There's a particular version of him everybody expects to see and in love with another dude is miles away from it.

"Yeah," Billy says. His voice is soft this time, sad, and Steve spends a good ten seconds fighting himself before ultimately stepping outside and heading to work. 

_ Saturday, June 22nd, 1985 _

Of all the places they've ever made out, the bathroom of the cheap, knock-off McDonald's off of Interstate 74 is probably the worst.

Not that it was planned, of course. They'd just set out driving like they normally do, got hungry and stopped for lunch. Then one thing had led to another, Billy got that look in his eye and they'd wound up in the bathroom, making out. 

They've made out in tons of bathrooms but this one… it smells like a collection of things that Steve would rather not individually identify but that he knows add up to really bad. It has floors that look like they wouldn't know what a mop is, were it possible for floors to know things like that and overall the… Steve can't even use the word "ambiance" on the place. It stinks and that's it. 

But Billy, god bless him, is trying. He's tilting Steve's head back in that way he likes and pressing these kisses to his neck that are just shy of biting but Steve can't stop laughing. Because this place _ stinks._

"This place stinks," he says out loud.

He pushes up against the wall of the bathroom stall but this does nothing to deter Billy.

"This place stinks!" he says again, still quiet but just barely.

He puts his hands on his neck but this still isn't enough to deter Billy. Billy just starts kissing and licking long stripes along his fingers instead of his neck and it should be gross, it should be awful, but like everything else Billy does, it's obscenely hot and makes Steve's knees feel like they're about to be entirely incapable of holding up his weight any second now.

"Fine," Billy says roughly as he breaks away.

When he looks at Steve he's still got this hunger in his eyes because of course he does. Because Billy could be turned on in the middle of a landfill.

Steve laughs as Billy disentangles himself and heads out. He waits the customary minute and fifteen seconds before heading out himself and finds Billy waiting in the car. 

Steve can't stop laughing the entire drive home.

_ Friday, June 7th, 1985 _

It's late. Like it's stupidly late. And Steve just got off an agonizing eight hour shift, the most terrible part of which involved an eight-year-old terror that started banging on the glass with his fists like he was King freaking Kong just as Steve was making his ice cream sundae with as the kid put it "obscene" amounts of sprinkles, causing Steve to jump and the jar of sprinkles to shatter all over the floor.

The brat's parents hadn't apologized, either. They'd just shrugged at him with a sort of, "Kids, what can you do?" look, paid for the ice cream and left. 

Steve knows that's not just a kid thing. He knows a couple kids and none of them behave like that… that… _ monster._

To make matters worse, he wound up having to pick up every single sprinkle on his hands and knees because the store's vacuum was broken and the manager had chosen that night of all nights to come and check up on them and the broom just couldn't quite get every last one.

It had taken him an _hour. _

The rest of the night hadn't gone much better and now all Steve wants to do is take this stupid, ugly uniform off, shower, crawl into bed and dream of burning the stupid sailor's hat he's forced to wear by the great cosmic joke that is his life and just try to forget the whole day ever happened.

Or at least that's the plan before he pulls his car into his driveway and sees Billy sitting on his doorstep with a couple of VHS tapes and a six-pack of cheap beer. 

Steve's parents aren't home (big surprise) which means they have the house to themselves. They set the VHS tapes and the beer down in the living room before Steve says, "Okay, but I gotta go shower. I smell like ice cream and I need to get out of these stupid shorts." 

"Nuh-uh," Billy grunts. He grabs Steve roughly and exaggeratedly smells Steve's hair. "I think you smell delicious." He then makes a point of grabbing Steve's ass and squeezing. Hard. "And I think you look really hot in these shorts," he whispers in Steve's ear.

Steve is too tired to know if he's annoyed by this, turned on, or both. But he's definitely too tired to argue so he shrugs. 

"Fine. What movies did you get?" he says as he throws his hat behind the couch.

He knows he'll probably regret doing that in the morning when he can't find it but for now it makes him smile. Because the hat is stupid and not having to look at it for at least a little while makes him feel better.

"Two classics. _ Halloween _ and _ The Thing,_" Billy says. He holds the tapes up in front of Steve's face and pretends not to be super excited about it.

Steve pretends like he doesn't think it's cute.

"Uhhhh…" Steve mumbles. The fact that he hates horror movies is an argument he quit starting months ago. "You pick," he says. 

Billy purses his lips and thinks it over like the question might just be one of the most important of his entire life.

Finally, he says, "Halloween."

They get settled in on the couch and since Steve's parents are two states away and not expected back for a week and a half, they actually get comfortable, their legs naturally resting against each others' on the coffee table and Billy putting an arm over Steve's shoulder. 

Steve barely makes it through the very creepy credits, his eyes continually dropping shut of their own volition. The last thing he notices before he passes out entirely is Billy brushing his hair back from his forehead and placing a kiss on his temple.

_ Wednesday, May 22nd, 1985 _

They drive a ways out of town and park in an empty field. The sky is dark and painted with stars - the one and only thing Steve likes about living in such a small town. 

They talk endlessly about music - well, mostly Steve listens during that particular topic, and they talk about basketball and stupid school shit and everything except the future. They both know Steve's graduating soon and Billy isn't graduating until next year. What they don't know is what comes next. Or rather, Billy doesn't. 

Steve though, he has a plan. He's not going to college. He knows there's not a chance in hell any of the four schools he applied to will take him anyway, not even the state school his mom turned her nose up at when he mentioned it. But it doesn't matter because even if any of them did accept him, he's staying. He's going to stay for Billy.

And Robin's deferring for a year to save up money anyway, so he figures he can just get a job somewhere with her. So he's staying for her, too. 

He knows he's not like Robin, who's so smart she'll knock it out of the park with absolutely anything she chooses to do, and he's not like Billy, who Steve knows could be dropped at random in a new city with no job and no money and still somehow manage to land on his feet. 

But he can do this. He can stick by the people he loves. That's one thing he's good at. 

"Okay, what?" 

Steve looks over at Billy. "What?"

He shoves at Billy gently, attempting to break the tension that's suddenly heavy on his skin and in the air but Billy doesn't budge. He's got that bull-seeing-red look on his face that means whatever he's caught and latched on to, he's not about to let it go. 

"You're thinking about something," Billy says, flicking at Steve's temple with a finger.

Steve shoves his hand away. 

"I was, actually," he says. "I was thinking about the future." 

"Oh," Billy says quietly. It's a little too dark to see for sure but based on the crestfallen tone in his voice, Steve would say all the color probably just drained out of Billy's face. 

In an attempt at comfort, Steve reaches out to grab Billy's hand but Billy snatches it away, dropping it in his lap and just out of Steve's reach.

"I'm staying," Steve says. 

"Oh," Billy says again, happier this time. Then, "Are you sure?" 

"Absolutely, positively, one hundred and ten percent sure," Steve says. 

"Just can't stand to be away from me, huh?" Billy says. He's got his swaggering confidence back in full effect but Steve knows him better now, knows without needing to see any evidence that secretly, Billy's nervous.

"I don't think I'll ever want to be away from you," Steve says.

He means it. Maybe they haven't been dating all that long, maybe they haven't even known each other for that long, but he knows he won't.

He knows it like the sky is blue and his parents suck and like he knows Robin is his best friend.

This is something he never wants to be without.

Billy is someone he never wants to be without. 

Beside him, he can practically _ feel _ Billy smiling. He's trying to hide how much this means to him, trying to duck his head, but Steve's not about to let that stand so he crawls on top of Billy, grabs both his hands and pushes him so he's laying back against the car. Up close Steve can see this lingering uncertainty in Billy's eyes and it pulls at him, almost makes him wince with the pain of it.

"I promise I will never leave you," he says. The look in Billy's eyes doesn't waver, not for a second so Steve kisses him, tries to express with physical affection the point his words aren't getting across, but it doesn't work. The look is _ still _ there, much as Steve knows Billy would never admit to any such thing. 

Steve raises Billy's hands above his head and holds them there, presses kisses along his jaw, on his cheeks, anywhere but his lips.

Billy, impatient as always, sighs into the kiss and pushes until they're sitting up, gripping Steve's hands hard enough it almost hurts the entire time.

He takes control and Steve lets him.

He figures it's okay if Billy doesn't believe him right now. They're young and they've got lots of time.

_ Friday, May 17th, 1985 _

Steve is running his list of errands through his head -_ buy gas for the car, get Tylenol, get toilet paper, pick up the mail _ \- when suddenly out of nowhere there's a pair of strong arms wrapped around his shoulders and pulling him towards - he looks around frantically - the dark and twisty alley behind the pharmacy.

_ Great._

He drops his groceries and twists, wrenches one arm free and makes a fist, is about to swing when he sees the person who grabbed him. It's Billy.

"What the fuck?" he curses loudly as he runs back to grab his bags. "I thought you were a - " 

Billy cuts him off.

"What? A kidnapper? A _deviant?"_ Billy laughs, loud and obnoxious. He slithers up to Steve, presses up against his side and whispers in his ear, "A _pervert?_"

He laughs again, but this time it's low and quiet and Steve can feel Billy's breath on his skin.

He hates that it gives him goosebumps. 

He huffs as he spins away from Billy, yelling, "I thought you were a mugger, actually!"

He's not quite ready to give up his anger just yet, even though he knows he's doomed to.

"Oh," Billy says, eyes wide. Hungry. "There's that fire you so love to keep hidden." 

Billy licks his lower lip as he stares nakedly at Steve and Steve wonders if Billy knows he's doing it, the staring or the lip licking.

He seems so focused, so intent, it's a little scary; Steve gets lost in it, starts to feel his anger being overcome by this big, crashing wave of pure _want_ that he knew was coming but that still somehow manages to steal his breath anyway. 

Even so, he manages to push it aside for just long enough to set his bags down again and crosses his arms across his chest. He glares at Billy. "Don't do that again," he says.

Billy grins wide like a shark and steps up to him slowly, thoughtfully.

He brushes his lips over the shell of Steve's ear then whispers, "Never, King Steve," and there are about seven different layers of sarcasm to what Billy's saying but underneath that the words have the ring of truth to them. Like he's calling Steve his King. Like...

Billy kisses the shell of Steve's ear and Steve has to fight to stand still.

Billy wraps an arm around his waist and turns Steve around, pulling their bodies as close together as they'll go.

Steve looks around nervously, but they're alone, surrounded on all sides by concrete and boarded up back windows.

Steve runs his hands up Billy's forearms to his exposed chest and plants them there.

Mostly he finds Billy's insistence at having his chest on full display at all times incredibly annoying and crass, but sometimes, like right now, he's glad. He knows he's not the only one who gets to touch Billy like this, with things being the way they are but as he runs his fingers across the smooth skin there, he smiles because he knows he's the only one who gets this reaction - he can feel Billy's heart racing just under his fingers and he can see the hunger in Billy's eyes stoking itself into a wildfire.

_You're mine_, Steve thinks as he leans in for a kiss. _ You're all mine._

_ Tuesday, May 7th, 1985 _

The only time Steve sees Billy all day is for five minutes between gym and biology as Billy drags him into the boys bathroom on the second floor, the one no one ever uses.

Billy checks under every stall then grabs a thin plank of wood from his back pocket and jams it under the crack of the door, effectively locking them in and Steve decides he does _ not _want to know where Billy got the wood from. 

And Billy doesn't say anything, either, just stalks forward and kisses him like they haven't seen each other in twelve years, rather than three days like it's actually been. 

"I missed you," Billy says, his voice raw and Steve's seen him say this line to dozens of girls, but this is different. He knows this is different. This means more to both of them than anything that's come before or anything else going on around them.

This, Billy's hands in his hair, Billy pushing him up against the wall and crowding his space so Steve can see nothing else but him, this, the pressure and the weight of his body making it so Steve can barely breathe, let alone move, this is everything.

_ Wednesday, April 10th, 1985 _

Billy slips into Steve's car and instantly it's weird. Something's wrong. Usually, Billy is all big smiles, lewd jokes and serious insistence that Steve change his god awful music to one of the tapes he gave him but tonight there's none of that. Tonight he just slides in silently with his head down and puts on his seatbelt without having to be cajoled into doing it. It makes Steve feel more different kinds of wrong than he's sure the dictionary has words for, so he puts his foot on the gas the second Billy's got his seatbelt clicked in, leaving the eerie glow of the lights of the Hargrove house in the dust like a malevolent ghost he's desperately trying to outrun. 

They stop a few miles out of town and Steve is instantly unbuckling his seatbelt, twisting to face Billy and is about to make the awkward crawl to sit in Billy's lap, but Billy just holds up his hands, spreading out his fingers and spreading out his arms in such a way that there's basically a wall between them and if Steve was feeling wrong before it's nothing compared to the full-on red alarm panic he's feeling now that's got his stomach sloshing around from side to side like it's decided to be a tumultuous ocean instead of a stomach and his heart picking up speed like it's preparing itself for a long cross country journey.

After only a few seconds Billy drops his hands to his sides, curls them into fists but still says nothing.

Steve counts to ten, breathes in deep and tentatively reaches out to run a hand along Billy's shoulder to test the waters. Billy doesn't make a face when Steve's fingers make contact, doesn't clench his fists. The sharp intake of breath is the only signal he gives but it's enough.

Neil hit Billy. Steve doesn't have to ask to know. If Billy had gotten into a fight with anybody else he would have come into the car smiling and at least ten times handsier than usual, not like this. Like he's trying to sink into the leather of the front seat and disappear. 

Steve gulps and tries again, reaches out for Billy's side, wants to run his fingers delicately up and down Billy's ribs as reaffirmation.

He'd say words but he doesn't have any. None for Billy, anyway. 

When Steve's fingers make contact with Billy's ribs though, when he finally crosses that distance, there's another sharp intake of breath and still, Billy just sits there, eyes focused dead ahead, no expression on his face. There's no fire, there's no jokes, there's no... Billy.

He's disappeared into himself. 

And it makes Steve want to scream, want to cry, want to grab his nail bat from the trunk of his car, maybe his crowbar or maybe even both at once and let Neil see if he can still hit someone he hasn't spent years upon years programming to fear him. 

It makes him yank his hand back and it makes him feel guilty, even though _he's_ not the one that's done something wrong; Billy isn't either, even though he looks like he thinks he has. 

So Steve does the only useful thing he can think of in the moment and he turns his music off, puts in the mixtape labeled "Songs You Should Know, Stupid" and grits his teeth through some of the loudest screaming and the loudest drums he's ever heard and he can't help but smile when he sees Billy unclench just a little at hearing it.

He waits through two songs before reaching over again and putting his hand just over the top of Billy's head, close enough for Billy to know its there but not quite close enough to touch and waits for Billy to close the distance. 

Steve watches the clock - it takes a full three minutes but finally Billy butts his head up into his hand and Steve slides his hand down to start slowly carding his fingers through Billy's hair. 

They sit that way for at least an hour, Steve just running his fingers through Billy's hair nonstop before Billy twists awkwardly under Steve's touch and ducks his head to lay a kiss on the palm of Steve's hand before shifting back into place and letting Steve keep stroking his hair.

_ Tuesday, March 12th, 1985 _

They're walking along a deserted residential street and there's not a single light on in any of the houses they pass by.

Late at night like this Hawkins feels like their own little world, like nothing can touch them, not the stupid townspeople and not the monsters Steve knows are hiding just beyond the shadows in a land he can't quite reach but that isn't as far away as it should be.

He never would have thought he could feel this safe outside at night without a weapon to protect himself with, but with Billy, he does.

It's unexpected, to say the least, but then nothing of the last year has been anything close to what he would have called expected.

He'd expected to always feel safe in his hometown because before pretty recently, he always had.

Now he doesn't.

There was a time when he felt safe in Hawkins no matter what, when he expected he would get a job working for his father's company and that'd be it and that'd be fine. There was a time he'd expected he'd marry Nancy Wheeler, have some kids, live in the same tiny, rinky-dink town until he died and that'd be enough, he'd be happy.

And now he doesn't.

Now he knows that all of that was a pale imitation, a cheap, half-smudged copy of what happiness really is.

They're not even doing anything, not saying anything, just walking around aimlessly, footsteps in sync without effort and that's something he'd never really thought much of before, moving through the world perfectly in step with someone else, but here he is with this big, brutish, mullet-wearing asshole that somehow has become one of the most important people in the world to him, just... walking side by side and perfectly in sync.

He can't remember that ever happening with Nancy, not even once.

Billy brushes up against his shoulder, briefly breaking their synchronization and drawing Steve's attention. Billy's wearing this Cheshire cat grin and Steve hates to admit how even just that makes something in his stomach flip. 

But Billy reaches over and puts a hand on Steve's shoulder, gives him this short, delicate kiss, then keeps walking like nothing happened, leaving Steve scrambling to keep up. Steve's always feeling like he's scrambling to keep up lately but something in him loves it here, loves the way he can never quite predict what Billy's gonna do next, loves the excitement and the mystery of it. 

He just… he just loves Billy, really.

_ Wednesday, February 27th, 1985 _

If Steve has to spend one more second trapped in this Hell they call high school with Billy staring at him like that he is going to pull his hair out one strand at a time. 

It's been like this all day. No, scratch that, it's been like this _ for over a week, _ever since Billy sang that stupid song at him.

Billy's been staring at him, watching him like he wants to tear him apart and eat him. 

Or like he wants to do... something. 

The _something _part of the equation is the part that has Steve worried. Though mostly that worry takes the form of the thought: but what if the something Billy wants isn't the same something he wants? Because Steve... Steve wants Billy to kiss him. Just. Like really badly. Stupidly badly. 

It's _ridiculous._

This _whole thing_ is _ridiculous. _

And it continues on after school when Steve gets a ride home from Billy and the whole time Billy just stares at him while Max sits in the backseat, pointedly ignoring the both of them like she normally does. 

They drop Max off first and Steve thinks, _Good, maybe now we can talk, _ but neither of them says a word. Not about the song and not about anything else.

Probably for the first time since Steve met him, Billy doesn't have any music playing, so the car just fills and fills and _fills_ with this kind of never-ending silence and Steve thinks he might just have to jump out of the car to get away from it.

When Billy pulls up to Steve's house he parks the car but neither gets out nor tells Steve to. This leaves Steve feeling more confused than ever, then when he looks over at Billy he finds the expression on Billy's face completely unreadable, which just makes it worse.

And Billy just sits there, his hands on the wheel, keys in the ignition but the car turned off and Steve doesn't get it.

So he stares.

He stares and he stares and he stares until finally, Billy cracks.

"I want you," Billy says. And that's it. Three words that don't bring Steve any closer to understanding what they're doing here, either in this moment or in general so he just continues to sit there and to stare at Billy until he's offered an explanation he likes. 

"I... I want - I want you," Billy says again, sounding nervous and unsure in a way Steve didn't think Billy was even capable of.

In all the time that they've been friends, Steve hasn't seen Billy drop his confidence even once; he just assumed it was something that didn't happen to Billy, like confidence was as natural to him as breathing.

But it's happening now. There's a bead of sweat forming at Billy's hairline and Billy's started gripping the steering wheel hard enough for his knuckles to turn white.

Steve has to put him out of his misery.

"I want you, too," he says. 

Billy's lips part in the tiniest possible hint of a smile and that's all it takes to have Steve scrambling to undo his seatbelt so he can lean over, grab Billy's face with both hands and kiss him senseless.

"God, I've wanted…" Billy whispers as they break apart, both panting and gasping for air. 

"Since the day I met you," Steve says. He looks away as he says it, feels his cheeks heating up as he does. 

Billy runs one of his long, powerful fingers under Steve's chin and turns Steve's head to face him. "Me, too," he says.

Their second kiss is so much better than their first that it makes Steve excited to find out what their third is going to be like. Kissing Billy is like kissing sunshine that's caught on fire and it makes Steve think maybe it's contagious. He hopes it is, anyway, hopes he can steal some of that fire for himself and keep it.

Even if it isn't, even if he can't, he will take whatever he can get for as long as he can get it. Because he's never experienced anything remotely close to this good before.

_ February 17th, 1985 _

They're driving around, doing nothing, same as any other day when this song comes on and Billy starts singing along. 

"_I've been up and down, I've been all around, I was mystified, almost terrified. But late at night I still hear you call my name_," Billy sings the words softly and, Steve thinks, does a better job of it than the guy on the tape. The song is vaguely familiar like maybe he's heard it before but Steve can't place it.

He's too entranced by Billy singing to care much, anyway. 

With the next verse, Billy gets a little bit braver, a little bolder.

"_I've been on my own, I've been all alone, I was hypnotized, I felt paralyzed. But late at night I still want you just the same._"

Billy takes the next corner a little too sharply, barely bothering to look and see if there's anybody crossing the street before charging through the crosswalk. It makes Steve nervous and has him wrapping his fingers around the edge of his seat and clinging to it.

"_I've been a gambler, but I'm nobody's fool,_" Billy sings and Steve finds himself nodding along both with the beat of the music and the statement itself.

Billy continues.

_"And I sure know something, sure know something. You showed me things they never taught me in school. And I sure know something, sure know something. No one can make me feel the way that you do. And__ I sure know something, aha."_

Billy is full-on belting it out at this point, getting really into it and moving his body along with the music. If Steve didn't want him before, this little performance would definitely be enough to throw him over the edge. 

As it is he feels like he might be in danger of_ actually _ throwing himself over something at this point because he isn't sure how he's going to keep it up anymore, pretending that being friends with Billy is enough for him. Not after seeing something like this. 

"_I was seventeen, you were just a dream. I was mesmerized, I felt scared inside. You broke my heart and I still can feel the pain._"

At the words "you broke my heart" Billy rips his eyes from the road in front of them and looks at Steve with such sincerity that it drags a weird, unintelligible noise halfway between a word and a grunt out of Steve's mouth. 

Because… Billy couldn't actually _ mean _ any of that, could he?

But Billy keeps staring at him and Steve starts to worry about him crashing the car.

"_I've been counted out, I've had fear and doubt, I've been starry-eyed, never satisfied. 'Cause late at night I still need you just the same._" The song keeps going after that but Billy stops singing. 

He turns his eyes back to the road, acting like nothing at all out of the ordinary just happened. 

_And maybe it didn't, _ Steve thinks, his fingers still gripped to the edge of his seat. _ Maybe I want this so bad now I'm losing my mind. _

He can't deny that he wants it to have happened, though. He can't deny that he wants it to have meant something.

He wants to, no he _ needs _ to... to know, but he can't stand to ask so instead he clears his throat and says, "Uh, that was great. What song was that?" and his voice comes out as reedy as that of a fourteen-year-old that's just had his first voice drop and he hates it, he can't stand it.

He wants to bury his head in his hands in shame but instead he keeps his eyes focused straight ahead and his fingers gripped to the edge of the seat, even though they're starting to cramp up. 

"That was "Sure know something" by _KISS,_" Billy says, sounding incredulous. "You can't honestly tell me you don't know who _KISS_ is."

They've been friends long enough by now that Billy really should stop being surprised by Steve's lack of musical knowledge, but he's always surprised, every single time, like he just can't (won't) wrap his mind around it.

Steve shrugs anyway.

"I can honestly say that I don't," he says, his voice at least having the decency to come out normally this time. "Or, well, I've heard of them but not enough to recognize them, I guess."

"How am I even friends with you when you don't even know who _KISS_ is?" Billy says, laughing. 

"I don't know," Steve shoots back.

There are a lot of things he doesn't know. Like how he's going to survive the rest of this car ride without blurting out how in love with Billy he is. 

Somehow, though, he manages.

Barely.

Although when Billy drops him off a few hours later he almost says something, hanging onto the open car door for just a few seconds too long, he stares just a little too openly, but ultimately he manages to keep his pitiful self-respect intact, closes the door and heads into his big, stupid, empty house and stuffs his face with the two day old lasagna in the fridge that his mom didn't even make herself and manages to focus on that rather than obsess like an idiot over the way Billy explicitly said the words, "you broke my heart" while staring at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.
> 
> I had the PERFECT song for this chapter - Scorpions' "You and I" only it turned out to have come out in 1990!
> 
> So then I spent a long time talking with [nerdygirlbbse2000](http://nerdygirl2000bbse.tumblr.com) about music on tumblr before coming up with "Sure Know Something" by KISS. Which also works. 
> 
> Finding an era appropriate metal ballad that doesn't use female pronouns is HARD. :)


	8. If only you could see

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've sorta noticed that most of the comments on this fic aren't from the same people chapter to chapter and it's making me wonder if people aren't following this story as it's being updated or if maybe it's going in a direction people don't like or something? If people could maybe let me know in the comments what they're thinking I would really appreciate it.
> 
> Also, just a heads up, there's more mentions of Neil abusing Billy in this chapter.

_ Saturday, November 9th, 1985 _

Steve wakes up with a plan. He's going to track Billy down and talk to him, if for no other reason than to wipe away (or at least minimize) the sad look Robin's been wearing for the past week like it's been permanently grafted to her face.

He also wants to do it to… well, it'll probably be useless, it probably won't help, but… maybe actually talking to Billy like he feels like he should might wipe out some of the fear that's been eating away at him ever since this all started. Like maybe that might help.

Like maybe it's something. 

Or maybe it's nothing. 

Steve doesn't know anymore. 

This whole experience has been forcing him to be more honest with himself than he's ever wanted to be, than he probably ever would have been if he'd never had these memories in his head. 

Because the truth is… the truth is… he's always had a thing for Billy. Even the version of Billy that smashed a plate over his head. Even the version of Billy he smashed a car into. But before, those feelings were small, before, those feelings were... they were ignorable. 

They were harder to ignore than say, the way he noticed Tommy's freckles or the color of Sam Brewster's eyes in seventh grade, but they were still easy enough to ignore that he could run towards girls (and only girls) instead. Because it's not like he doesn't like girls. He loved Nancy and he meant it when he said he liked Robin before finding out that particular road was a dead end. 

But now? Now he plays the memories in his head on a loop, the feeling of Billy's hand in his, Billy's laugh in his ear, Billy's hair knotted up around his fingers and Billy's hands splayed out on his chest...

Because he didn't… he didn't think any of that was really ever a possibility. Without these memories, without this knowledge, he never would have gone near the feelings he has for guys, the fact that they make him feel the same way girls do. 

But it's also more than that, too. He never would have thought that being with _ Billy _ was an option.

And he's not so dumb that he thinks that's going to happen now, because he knows it's not, because he knows it would be wrong to essentially trick Billy into thinking that he's basically someone else, but...

Looking back and comparing the two sets of memories in his mind, he thinks that not noticing any of it was probably pretty dumb. Because Billy, regardless of which version, was not and is not subtle. There are a lot of similarities between his old life and his new one, between that version of Billy and this one. Both versions of Billy looked at him the same way, with that same hunger burning in their eyes. They both pushed him down and got too close a few too many times during basketball practice for it not to mean anything. Especially considering that basketball is _ not _ a contact sport. 

Then, there's the big tip-off, the most obvious part, the thing Steve knows he's a complete and total idiot for missing - the way Billy talked to him and looked at him in the showers. The way he paid attention while every other guy (Steve included), always avoided eye contact. Even if any conversations were held in the showers, there was always a heavy avoidance of any real eye contact. 

Not Billy, though. While everyone else was busy covering themselves in towels and pretending not to notice each other's business, Billy just let it all hang out. And Steve very much does mean 'all'. Billy never cared about who was looking at him, or why. 

And Steve figures that if he's into both men and women, and this other version of himself was also into both men and women, well then it's probable both versions of Billy are into men, right?

As Steve gets dressed he wonders about what could have happened, how things could have been different, had he known. Because looking back, now that he knows… it's pretty obvious Billy wasn't teasing him and calling him "pretty boy" just to rile him up.

He's halfway through doing his hair when it occurs to him that nothing would have changed where he comes from, not really, because in the version of events he comes from, Billy's dead.

He knows this, hasn't ever been able to forget but now he's really thinking about it and the memories of seeing Billy fighting the monster start taking over playing in the loop in his mind.

He can't stop thinking about it and has to fight not to snap his comb when he feels his fingers tightening their grip on it. He looks down at his hairspray and wants to throw it across the room. He looks at himself in the mirror, sees his own wide-eyed panic staring back at him and squeezes his eyes shut. He breathes in slow and breathes out slow, then does it again. 

He tries, and not for the first time, to fit the image of kissing Billy in alongside the image of Billy being stabbed by giant monster tentacles into the thousand-piece puzzle his brain has become and can't make them fit together.

Suddenly, he doesn't know if going to find Billy is such a good idea, after all. 

But he knows he's going to do it anyway.

Because they're supposed to be friends, right? Under or over anything else they're supposed to be friends and that's supposed to mean something. And different person or not he can't just stand by and watch, he can't just hear Robin talk about how Billy seems to be an inch away from hitting his own personal self destruct button without trying to do something about it. Not when he knows he's the cause of the pain. 

\---

Heart in his throat and feeling like he's going to be sticking his head in a bush and full-on throwing up any second now, Steve knocks on the Hargroves' door. 

He's surprised, though he doesn't entirely know why, when Max answers quickly followed by Lucas. 

"Uh, hey, Max," Steve says awkwardly. "Is your brother home?" 

The look Max gives him is curious, part annoyance and part something else, something that Steve has trouble completely defining, though if he was going to guess he'd have to say it looks a little like she wants to grab a shovel and hit him with it. 

"He's not here," she says. 

"Oh, uh…" Steve panics. He hadn't really thought any farther ahead than showing up here and knocking on the door. "Do you know where he is?"

Max crosses her arms over her chest. "No, I don't," she says. She's studying him intensely and the fact that he has no idea why just makes it worse. Behind her, Lucas looks just as confused as he feels which somehow helps a little. But only a little. 

"He left about an hour ago," Lucas says in this casual, relaxed way. It has Max looking back at him and from the fearful look Lucas suddenly sprouts Steve guesses she's probably glaring at him like maybe she's going to hit him instead.

"What?" Lucas blurts out. "He did!" 

Max whips her head back around, leveling her gaze back on Steve and trying to crush him with it. "Whatever," she says. 

"Right, well, thanks," Steve says with the best smile he can manage. It does nothing to change the look on Max's face. "I'll just be going, then." 

As he's heading back to his car Steve overhears Lucas asking, "What? Do we hate Steve now?" and then hears the sound of Max hitting him, probably elbowing him in the gut if the, "Oof!" he hears is anything to go by. He files the whole interaction away under "things he's probably never going to understand" and gets into his car.

He goes to every place he can think of to look for Billy starting with that record shop he's heard Robin mention, then the arcade and then the movie theater. He even tries driving out to the quarry, but Billy isn't there, either.

It's as he's driving past the high school, having pretty much decided to give up that he catches a flash of blue and decides to slow down. 

It's the Camaro. He's found him.

Steve's almost tempted to just keep on driving, pretend he hadn't noticed and just go home. Part of him wants to do just that, to give up, to not do this, to shrug and to say he tried and just leave it be.

He wants to do it, to just keep on driving and give up on his earlier plan but instead, his hands start turning the steering wheel towards the school parking lot and he starts grinning. Weirder still, when he parks beside the Camaro, when he knows for sure Billy's here, he's _ excited_. 

That excitement quickly twists into nervousness when he can't immediately find Billy. Because Billy's not in his car, he's not in the parking lot and he's not anywhere near the front of the building. It's Saturday, so the building itself is locked up tight, not that Steve doesn't check because yeah, that'd be a very Billy Hargrove thing to do, break-in to school on a Saturday for no reason.

Steve wanders around back to the football field and that's where he finds Billy - sitting on the bleachers, reading a book like he belongs there, like he owns the place.

He isn't wearing gloves and Steve can see from here that Billy's fingers are bright pink from the cold. But Billy's sitting absolutely still, just turning page after page like his breath isn't coming out visibly, like the cold isn't bothering him, like he's used to it, which is entirely unexpected for the California born and bred boy that he is. 

Steve's_ from here_ and it's been maybe five minutes since he left the safe warmth of his car and already he's done with the cold. He's done with the way it bites at his cheeks and the way it seeps through his boots and the way it makes his nose go all red and ugly. 

Most people are ugly in the cold. They wear big, ugly, frumpy coats with big, ugly, frumpy hats and big, ugly, frumpy scarves and their noses run and their cheeks turn a hideous shade of pink.

But not Billy. 

Billy's cheeks are pink but it's the most beautiful sort of pink, it makes his already much too beautiful face even prettier. He's wearing a winter coat but rather than make him look stupid or goofy it just showcases his big, broad shoulders.

"Can I help you?" Billy drawls, only barely just looking up from his book and Steve realizes he's been staring and is now only about ten feet away from the bleachers and from Billy. 

"Uh," Steve says, mind drawing a complete blank.

He looks at the book instead of at Billy. He's reading something called _ Books of Blood IV_. Steve's never heard of it, but from the monstrous-looking cover he's willing to bet it's a horror novel and something he wouldn't at all be interested in, if books ever interested him in the first place.

He asks about it anyway. "So what book are you reading?" It's pathetic, he knows it's pathetic, but it's what he's got. 

"Clive Barker," Billy says slowly. "It's a collection of short stories." 

"Mmhmm," Steve mumbles. "Cool." 

Billy doesn't say anything else and refuses to meet his eyes, so they're just left in awkward silence.

Steve tallies up the top, most awkward, most uncomfortable moments from his life - those dinners with Barb's parents, the day after the party where Nancy called him _bullshit,_ that party itself, the time at the Mall where Robin came out and told him he'd forgot his hat at work and handed it to him when he was in the middle of flirting with a girl and the girl laughed at him harder than anyone else ever has and the time in sixth grade when Tommy pulled his pants down in front of everyone on the playground in the middle of a fight - he thinks about all this and he thinks, no, he _knows,_ this tops them all in terms of sheer mortification. 

"Why are you here, Steve?" Billy asks, still not looking at him.

Billy calling him _Steve_ throws him. He still half expects, okay entirely expects, for Billy to call him _Harrington_ and he can't help the flinch being called by his first name draws out of him. It feels too personal, too… real. 

"We're supposed to be friends, right?" Steve says. 

Billy continues staring at his open book but his eyes aren't moving on the page anymore, he's stopped reading it and now he's just pretending to.

"I suppose so," he says after a silence long enough to fill Steve's head with enough worry to drown in. 

"So we should act like it," Steve says with a sort of bravery he doesn't remotely feel. 

There's another long silence before Billy says, "Okay," and waves a hand at the bench next to him, eyes still mostly trained on his book.

Steve scrambles up the long, silver bleachers gracelessly and can't help but notice Billy noticing him do it and barely holding back from laughing.

He wants to shout, "Tah-dah!" and throw his arms wide once he makes it up, makes it to Billy. He wants to actually make Billy laugh, but instead he just sits down quietly, leaving just enough space between them that they're not touching. 

Within seconds, the cold metal of the bleachers is cutting into Steve's legs and he can't help but wonder how long Billy's been out here, why he's out here, what could possibly possess him to be out in this cold alone rather than at home?

And that's when the memories hit him. With that thought right there, like that thought had been the key to the lockbox they'd been stored in.

But this time the memories hit him with a burst of rage that hits like a punch to the gut. He sees himself slowly petting Billy's hair, sees the bruises layered new over old on his back, sees the tears Billy refuses to shed.

He sees himself sitting in his car outside the Hargrove house at night, his eyes glued to the bright light of the windows and hearing Neil screaming insults at Billy. He sees Billy come flying out of the house like a bull that's just had red flashed in his eyes then got destroyed for reacting to it.

He watches Billy fling himself into the passenger seat and sees himself put his hand over Billy's, sees Billy whip his hand away like the touch burns his skin. He watches them drive away as fast as his car can go and Steve wants to scream. He gets now why Billy isn't at home. Gets that "home" for Billy, well... isn't.

"I… I have to go," Steve stammers, picking himself up and almost throwing himself off the bleachers.

Billy says nothing as he runs away. Steve isn't even sure Billy's looking and he doesn't look back to check. 

He makes it to his car and gets in quick, the new memories still so fresh in his mind that he thinks that maybe it's not safe to drive even as he's turning the key in the ignition and starting the engine. 

He makes it downtown before another wave of memories hits him - Billy's banging on a door and shouting his name and Steve wants to get up, to go to him, but he can't. It's hot, it's so hot Steve almost forgets what time of year it is in reality, everything is just so hot, so unbearable. And fuzzy. Everything is fuzzy. 

Somehow he manages to pull the car over and park it, or at least he's pretty sure he does. Everything is just so fuzzy, like there's static in his head, like there's static in his _ eyes_, if such a thing is possible. He keeps hearing Billy calling his name over and over and _over._

He reaches out for him, but his hands only grasp air. He sees the darkness swirl around him and swallow him whole, making Billy's voice sound faint and far away. It gets muffled to the point of not even sounding like words at all before it disappears completely, before the whole world disappears completely and takes Steve with it.

\---

The first thing Steve thinks when he wakes up is, _Shit, fuck, ow._ The second thing he thinks is, _What?_ _Huh? Why?_ as he notices a pair of hands banging heavily on his driver's side window. 

He sits up with a groan that sounds like it's coming from the dead rather than from himself and blinks heavily as he realizes the hands are attached to Dustin and a very worried looking Dustin at that.

He rolls down the window and tries not to squint.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he asks, each word feeling like a separate sentence in his head.

Thinking hurts. Looking at Dustin hurts. _ Everything _hurts and it's worse than any pain Steve's ever felt, even worse than that time he and Tommy got drunk on that entire bottle of cheap whiskey they'd stolen from Tommy's dad's secret stash.

"Me? What the hell is wrong with you? I found you unconscious in your car with a nosebleed!" Dustin almost screeches, like he's some sort of animal or something. He certainly looks spooked and if Steve's brain wasn't currently dead set on making him want to avoid sunlight for the rest of eternity, he'd feel bad.

No, he does feel bad. Dustin's eyes are a little glassy and he looks like he might actually cry, poor kid, so Steve sits up a little straighter and puts a believable smile on his face.

"I'm fine, dude, really," he says. He stretches his shoulders and yawns like he's just waking up from a good, long nap, even though the motion does nothing for him.

It doesn't do anything to convince Dustin, either as the next words out of his mouth are, "You are so clearly not fine." He then yanks on the door handle like he thinks its' somehow magically going to be unlocked. Like he hasn't tried that already. 

Steve gulps as he thinks of Dustin standing there, yanking uselessly on the door handle and banging on the window for who knows how long. Given the way Dustin's shoulders are still bunched up around his ears, it was probably a while.

Steve sighs and unlocks the doors, watches as Dustin runs around and hops in the passenger side.

"Steve," Dustin says, and god, this kid. The amount of heart he can put into one single word is enough to break a person.

He's lucky he does actually have a girlfriend from camp because otherwise, high school girls are just going to wreck him. "Steve, you are not okay," he says. 

Steve huffs. "I'm fine," he says.

He knows its' a lie, he does, but if he can spare Dustin at least a little bit of pain, he has to at least try. The kid takes everything to heart, like he's got no protection from anything whatsoever and sometimes Steve can't take it. He just can't take it.

But his attempt at sparing Dustin doesn't work, of course.

"No," Dustin says, crossing his arms. "No, you're not. And we need to tell the others." 

"Okay, fine," Steve says, relenting. "But we're not telling Billy."

_I don't think I can tell him that I saw him die, _ he thinks. _ I can't deal with that I saw him die anymore. _

Because the knowledge he has now, the feelings he has now… it was unfair that Billy had died before. It gave him nightmares before, like the kind that have you shaking awake from screaming.

Now he can't deal with it. Now it's not just unfair, it's downright criminal. Like he'd take the world to court and sue for the sheer level of unfair it all is if such a thing were possible. It isn't, though, and Steve has no idea what he's supposed to do, how he's supposed to handle this otherwise.

Dustin makes a face. "Who said anything about telling _ Billy_?" He says Billy's name like it causes him physical pain and Steve can't help but wonder if Dustin knows, if any of the others know. He wonders how Dustin would take it if he told him.

Steve shrugs. That's definitely a conversation for another day. "Well," he says. "So long as we're on the same page."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment. I would like to know what people think of this story the whole way through. Or, well, what there is so far.


	9. If you are broken all my heartache falls to you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the people who commented on the last chapter, it was really helpful so I would like to ask people to do it again. Please comment and tell me what you think, even if it's just to say one thing you do or don't like about this chapter or the way the plot is developing. Thank you!

_ Tuesday, November 12th, 1985 _

On Tuesday Billy rolls into school with Jessica riding shotgun. 

"You ready?" she asks as she pulls a compact mirror out of her pocket and reapplies her already perfect and perfectly over-the-top sparkly pink lip gloss. It makes the interior of Billy's Camaro smell overwhelmingly like bubblegum, making Billy turn his nose up in disgust.

"Absolutely. You?" he says, trying to breathe around the smell. It's so pervasive, which, going off the smile she gives him, is probably why she picked it.

"Yeah, this is gonna be fun," she says.

He gets out of the car first and waits for her with his arm out; she takes it with her war paint smile, making any girl that goes by do a double-take then look away. She puts her hand into his back pocket - he's wearing his tightest, best jeans today and he feels every bit of her hand on his ass. Even if he weren't wearing his tightest jeans, even if he were wearing those terrible, sloppy, poorly fitting ones that so many of the guys around here seem to love it'd be impossible to miss the way her hand squeezes as he walks. 

He puts on a smile like he likes it, like he _ loves _ it, even going so far as to nod at Carol as they pass by her and Tommy just outside the front doors.

When he opens one of the doors with one hand, he gives Tommy a wink like, "Girls, what can you do?" even though the reality is closer to that he can't believe people are buying this.

Not that Jessica's not just as good at her act as he is at his own. She is every inch as good at it as he is, maybe even better, but it's different now that he knows her. The real her, the girl with dreams of studying art history at the University of Chicago and working for a big, famous art museum in a big, famous city someday. The girl who loves old sweaters and old movies. The girl who loves her older sister with a level of determination and passion he can't help but admire. 

It's interesting seeing the differences between that version of her and this one - the bubblegum chewing, not a hair out of place, perfect vision of all things feminine.

She's meant to rule this school just as much as he is and she was right - this _ is _ fun, the way people are all but scrambling out of their way as they walk towards her locker. 

As they reach it she draws her hand out of his back pocket with the saddest of longing looks then cracks open her locker in just such a way so as to have her ponytail bounce as she does it. He pretends to watch with an entirely different sort of fascination than he's really feeling, though he is fascinated with seeing someone else put just as much effort into every move they make as he does.

After she's grabbed her books and sprayed herself with just the right amount of perfume she looks at him appraisingly. "Meet me for lunch?" she says sweetly. 

He grins his big, killer wolf smile. "Oh, you know I will." 

They spend the day trading notes everyone in school is whispering must be full of details of all the sex they must be having, what with the way they keep looking at each other like that but that are actually filled with stupid jokes and name suggestions for what she's going to call her cat when she gets one. 

At lunch they sit together and share their food - he got the sloppy joe, which she keeps plucking bits off of to pop into her mouth delicately and she got the fruit salad, which he keeps stealing grapes from and sucking on lewdly.

It's nice, having someone to sit with that, even though they're putting on this ridiculous show, he doesn't have to lie to. He hasn't had that since Robin and Steve graduated. 

Steve. He'd managed to go all morning without thinking about Steve and now Steve's stupid Bambi eyes are all he can think about. Steve's stupid Bambi eyes and the way he bolted like a deer seconds after saying they should act like the friends they're supposed to be. 

_ Friends. _ Christ, being "friends" with Steve Harrington might actually kill him. Billy has no idea what Steve knows and he really can't ask, "Hey, so are you still gay or what?" and he's fucking sick of it.

Jessica looks like she's about to snap her fingers in his face but instead she pushes a note towards him. On it, scribbled hastily in plain black ink are the words, _ You okay? _

He waves a hand at her, wordlessly asking for the pen still dangling from her fingertips. She passes it over without a word, just waits and watches. He writes down a single word as an answer - _ No. _

He pushes the scrap of paper back at her and as she reads it she smiles like he's just written something incredibly naughty, but behind that, the look in her eyes says she gets it.

She leans across the table to whisper in his ear, "Steve?" so quietly he can only barely just hear her over the noise of the cafeteria.

He nods. It's answer enough. 

"It'll be okay," she whispers as she pulls away, bright grin still on her face. She grabs the last strawberry from her fruit cup, nibbling at it delicately before getting to her feet. 

"I'll see you after?" she says, like it's a question, even though they both know it's not.

"I'll be waiting," he says. He gives her his best "I'm going to fuck you into next week" look. "This afternoon can't get here fast enough." 

Her smile spreads but she shrugs a shoulder like she's not really all that impressed. The whole thing looks impressive, just as intended, but he can tell that what she's actually doing is trying really hard not to laugh. 

She spins on her heel and walks off after that, carrying her empty lunch tray like it's a fashion accessory and the lunchroom is her catwalk. He has to put a hand over his mouth and hide his face so that no one can see him breaking into laughter after hearing some girl a few tables over saying, "Man, I wish my boyfriend wanted to devour me like he so clearly wants to devour her." 

After school, as promised, Billy waits for Jessica by his Camaro. She comes sauntering over, her heels click-clacking on the pavement with each step and he wonders how she manages to walk in them. They're ridiculously tall, almost enough to make them the same height. He figures there has to be some sort of art to it, but you wouldn't know it to look at her - she makes it look effortless.

They get into his car without saying anything and for a moment he doesn't put the keys into the ignition and he doesn't start the music. They sit there in this mounting silence, not looking at each other until finally, he breaks. "You're so nice to me and I really don't deserve it," he says, the words feeling like sandpaper on his tongue.

She giggles like she always does, flipping her hair behind her ear like it's a natural extension to the sound of it. To anyone walking by in the parking lot it probably looks like they're flirting. "You suck," she says.

In the next second her eyes go wide like she's just caught her own joke and she grins this big, Cheshire cat grin. "Hah! You really do suck!" Her face quickly morphs into something more somber, but only for a split second, there and gone. "But that doesn't mean you don't need people." 

Billy shakes his head. "People keep being nice to me and I really don't deserve it," he says again. 

"Yes, you do," Jessica says, sounding more sincere than he's ever heard her. The kindness of it makes his skin crawl. "You probably need it more than most, from what I've seen." 

"You don't act like you're this smart," Billy says. The observation hits him quickly and he's not able to avoid saying it out loud. Not that he would if he could, anyway. 

Jessica's expression sours. "Excuse me, but what the fuck?" she snaps, that bubblegum smacking, hair flipping, one eyebrow arched dominance he's seen her use at least a dozen times since he's started paying attention to her rearing its ugly head again.

"I meant that like I said it," he says. "Why don't you act like you're this smart?" 

Jessica shrugs and for a moment she looks a little bit smaller. "I dunno," she says. Her gaze trails to her shoes. "I don't look the part?" 

Billy sits up straighter, squares his shoulders and puts the key in the ignition. "Fuck that," he says. "You're better than that." 

"You're one to talk," she snaps back. 

He thinks this over as he picks out a tape, deciding on Quiet Riot's _Metal Health_ and not being able to keep from snorting when "Love's a bitch" starts playing. "Fair enough," he says. 

Jessica settles back in her seat as he pulls the Camaro out of the parking lot. "So how about we make a deal?" she says.

"What's the deal?" 

She steeples her fingers, clicking together her long, arched nails. They're painted fire engine red today. She smiles again. "We continue to call each other on our bullshit."

Billy nods. "Okay. Deal."

\---

If asked, Billy would deny it, but things with Max have been better. He hasn't had to pick her up from school every single day this past week but she always tells Neil he does. And Neil hasn't been home until around six lately so it's not like he's actually there to notice the lie. Susan doesn't care, either, but then Susan never cares about anything until it gets her into trouble. This hasn't yet, so she's fine.

Regardless, the point is Billy knows that he and Max now trust each other at least enough not to completely fuck each other over and that's something. It's weird and it's tenuous but also? 

It's kinda nice. 

It's something.

He's in the garage, working on his Camaro's engine when out of the corner of his eye he sees Max's sneakers approaching. It takes her a while before she speaks up, saying, "I'm thinking of getting back together with Lucas."

He almost drops his wrench on his foot.

"Don't," is all he can think to say. They might have a bit of a truce going but that doesn't mean he's remotely prepared for this older brother giving advice shit. Even if he _ was _ ready, he's terrible at advice. Christ, a three second look at his life should've told her that.

But then she asks, "And why not?" like she thinks they're really going to have this conversation, like this is a thing they're going to be doing now whether he likes it or not. In other words, he's fucked and while he's terrible at giving advice he's smart enough to know at least that much.

"You've broken up with him how many times now?" he says, the words feeling like teeth being pulled from his mouth. Not to mention that they're probably entirely the wrong thing to say, too.

She sighs, her feet shifting awkwardly on the concrete. "Six, but -" 

He cuts her off. "You deserve better than someone who pissed you off enough to break up with him six times." He finds himself shocked to realize that he actually means it. Max deserves better and not just in terms of boyfriends. She deserves better from him, too.

"One of the times, he dumped me, actually." 

"That doesn't make it better." 

With a grunt he stands back from the engine, admiring his work. "Hand me that cloth over there." 

She walks around the hood of the car to throw it at him, hitting him in the face. He rolls his eyes but says nothing, just wipes his hands off. 

"Who else am I supposed to go out with?" she whines. 

Billy rolls his eyes and throws the cloth, now much dirtier, back at her. She catches it easily. 

"Stay broken up with him for more than a week and I'm sure someone will ask you out." As he says this, he realizes he really doesn't want anyone to. Having to deal with the twerp he knows is bad enough. Having to chaperone her and some new idiot sounds even worse. 

"But he knows about the Upside Down. That's not something anybody else knows about," she says. 

It's a good point but also, "Is that the only reason you're with him?" 

She pauses, turns the idea over in her mind as she twists the cloth in her hands. "No," she says. "It's not." 

Billy really doesn't want to know why she likes this idiot boy, but he asks, "So what are you going to do about it?"

She frowns. "What if he won't take me back this time?" 

This is getting to a point where Billy is distinctly uncomfortable.

"Look, he might, he might not. I've got no idea and I'm terrible at this sort of shit besides. But we could… maybe go for ice cream?" he asks, his voice going up uncomfortably at the end. He's never volunteered to spend time with her before, but then she's never told him anything about her life, either. Maybe they can both try something new.

She makes a face like he's just suggested he could grow wings and fly and almost instantly he starts to regret that idea. "We don't have to, nevermind," he says just as she's shaking her head. 

"That might actually be kind of nice," she says. 

So they go for ice cream. And it is actually kind of nice. That is until she drips fudge mint all over his just cleaned front seat and he bitches at her for it and they start fighting. But, still.

It's something.

\---

It's just after school on Wednesday when Billy gets a phone call. He's sitting in the living room pretending to read when Susan calls out, "Billy, there's a girl on the phone for you." 

He's expecting it to be Robin or maybe Jessica so he's surprised when he hears Eleven's soft voice coming through the line. "Billy?" 

"Yeah?" He glances quickly around the kitchen - Susan is hovering nearby, pretending to chop up vegetables for some stew she's making. He glares at her but says nothing, not wanting to risk her telling Neil about it later. Neil's not home right now, at least.

"I have something I have to tell you," Eleven says. Billy's skin prickles. Neil might not be home but this still isn't the time for this. 

"Go for it," he says anyway. 

"Mike called me last night. He told me that Dustin told him that Steve's not okay." He can hear the unspoken quotation marks around the words 'not okay' like they're a direct quote.

He sneaks another look back at Susan - her grip is loose on the knife in her hand, her face directed down towards her cutting board too pointedly. She's absolutely listening in. 

"Billy?" Eleven asks, soft voice tinged with worry. 

"Yeah," Billy groans. "I'm still here." 

"What do you think we should do?" she asks, so hesitant each word crackles under the delicacy she's trying to apply to it.

Billy's grip on the phone tightens enough that he hears Susan making a "hmm" noise about it and he forces himself to loosen his grip, to drop the tension from his shoulders and stand loose and easy even as it feels like the rock that's all but taken up permanent residence in his gut might just roll out and crush him completely. 

"Not okay how?" he says with great effort. He wants to snap, to bite the words off roughly, but he doesn't. Instead, he speaks with the flattest, most disinterested tone he can manage and all for Susan's benefit. Fucking Susan. 

"I don't know, all Mike said was he's never seen Dustin this worried before." 

"Shit," Billy curses. "Okay…" He breathes out. Okay, he can handle this.

No, he can't.

"I think we should tell them," Eleven says on a sigh and Billy can tell instantly that this is what she's been building up to. He hates that she's not wrong. 

"You're probably right," he says, hating every single syllable of it. Behind him, Susan has gone back to loudly chopping her vegetables, clearly having decided that his conversation is no longer interesting enough to pay attention to. "Just give me a couple of days, alright?" 

"Alright. I'll call you again in a couple of days, then?" She says it like it's a question and he wonders if she meant it as one. 

"Yeah, sure," he says. 

They say their goodbyes and hang up and Billy feels himself start to crack. He looks over at Susan, sees her humming and swishing along to some song in her head and he wants to scream. He wants her to poke him, to prod at him, to say anything he doesn't like and give him a reason, any reason to lash out at her. He wants her to tell Neil and for Neil to come at him with both fists, give him something to fight, something to _ do_. 

But she doesn't. She just keeps humming, sliding her vegetables into the pot on the stove like she's completely forgotten he's even here. 

He brushes past her and storms out to his car. He starts it but doesn't put on any music, his whole body vibrating with the need to get out, to get away, to be literally anywhere else. 

He's downtown and has just decided to head out to the quarry when he comes across Dustin. The little twerp's got one of his dumb hats on and has his hands gripped tightly around his backpack straps. 

_ Perfect,_ Billy thinks. 

Without looking Billy pulls a u-turn in the middle of the empty street and pulls up next to Dustin. 

"Get in," he snarls.

"What? With you? Hell, no!" Dustin shouts. He even starts walking a little faster, like he thinks he can out-walk a car. Idiot. 

Billy follows him. "Get. In," he says again, drenching the words in menace. 

"Run me over if you want to but I'm _ not _ getting in your car," Dustin spits. He drops his hands from his backpack straps and curls them into fists. 

"You're gonna tell me about what's going on with Steve or I _ will _ run you over with my car." Billy throttles the engine, makes it purr in warning. "I know how to hide a body." 

"Jesus Christ," Dustin says, one of his hands unclenching to settle over his chest. "Fine!" 

Billy hits the brakes and waits for Dustin to get in. The kid takes his sweet time doing it and if he thinks Billy doesn't notice the way he doesn't do up his seatbelt, like that's gonna help him get away or something, he's an even bigger idiot than Billy previously thought. 

"What's wrong with Steve?" Billy asks as he takes his foot off the brake. 

"How do you know there's anything wrong with Steve?" 

Billy growls low in his throat. "Don't lie to me, kid and don't make me ask again. It won't go well for you."

Dustin sighs and with it deflates like a balloon. "I don't know," he says. He sounds like he means it, but it's not a good enough answer. 

"What do you mean you _ don't know_?" Billy turns the car around, heading back towards the center of town. He might be trying to scare the kid into talking, sure, but he's not actually trying to kidnap him or anything. He slows down just enough that if Dustin wanted to open the door and jump out, he'd survive. The doors are unlocked. 

"He…" Dustin blows out a breath. "See, what happened is… Oh, god, how do I explain this…" 

"Look, I," Billy starts. "I know Steve's not himself, so just start from there." He agrees with Eleven, they're going to have to tell Steve about what they did, but that's telling _ Steve. _He's not telling this kid. 

"Not himself is an understatement," Dustin mutters low enough that Billy isn't sure he was supposed to hear it.

He waits until Dustin speaks up again, saying, "This Steve's not our Steve and he keeps getting these nosebleeds and now he's getting headaches and he's passing out and I don't know what to do. I keep researching everything I can, I told the others, I asked Mr. Scott, I even thought about going to a doctor and telling them the symptoms like they were mine, but I didn't because then my mom would find out and my mom can't find out about this and I don't know what to do, I can't find any answers and _ I don't know what to do_."

"I got about half of that," Billy says even though it's a complete lie. He understood all of it and he's having a hard time focusing enough to make sure he doesn't crash the car. _ I did this, _ he thinks. _ There's something wrong with Steve and it's my fault. I did this. _

"Slow that down by about fifty percent and say it again," he says. 

Dustin looks about as rattled as he feels but the kid takes a deep breath and repeats himself more slowly as well as adding in the background details he doesn't know Billy already knows. As he talks Billy's glad to be driving just so he has an excuse not to look at him; he doesn't have any idea what to say. The words, _My fault, my fault, my fault, _ keep spinning around and around in his brain until they take up every inch of available space.

"I want to think he's going to be okay but I don't know anymore. I don't know what any of this means and I_ don't know what to do,_" Dustin says.

"Yeah." Billy sighs. "Me, either." 

Dustin looks at him like, "And who asked you?" but he doesn't actually say anything. 

Billy licks his lips. "I know you don't get it." _ In more ways than one. _ "But I care about Steve, too." 

"You're right, I don't get it, I haven't gotten it from day one. I will never _ get _ why _Steve_ is friends with someone like _ you_." Billy can hear it whether Dustin's aware he almost said it or not - I don't get why _ my _ Steve is friends with someone like _ you._ If Billy didn't know that Dustin has a girlfriend, if he hadn't seen firsthand the way Dustin looks at girls and not at boys he'd almost be worried. Not that Dustin's any kind of competition, definitely not with his dorky taste in hats and that terrible haircut at the very least.

Still, Billy almost feels sorry for the kid. He can see that Dustin is worried, that the kid's not far from crumbling entirely but his pride spikes and takes him over. Billy's allowed to think he's shit, but this kid doesn't get to. He hits the brakes in the middle of the crosswalk between Main Street and Seventh. "Get out," he says. 

Dustin gawks at him so he repeats himself: "Get out."

Dustin still doesn't move so he says, "Don't make me ask you again." He makes the threat bleed into the words until they're heavy with it.

"Fine," Dustin snarls. He grabs the door handle and as he yanks it open a look crosses his face like he's surprised the doors weren't locked. Like he's surprised Billy's not quite that kind of monster. 

The thing is he's not wrong. Billy is a monster. Just not the sort of monster Dustin thinks. 

Dustin slams the door and Billy peels off. The words rolling around inside his head - _It's my fault, it's my fault, it's my fault _ \- reach a fever pitch about a mile outside of town. Billy screams.

Something is wrong with Steve and it's all his fault. 

The image of Steve jumping off the bleachers and running away pops into his mind unbidden and he thinks, _ Well, that makes a whole lot more sense now. _

He pulls over to the side of the road, thinking about how something is wrong with Steve and whatever it is was probably happening that day and Steve's first and only instinct was to run away from him as fast as possible. 

Billy folds over in his seat, his forehead coming to rest on the top of the steering wheel. The words, _It's my fault _ merge together with the words, _ I'm a monster _ to make an entirely new breed of disgust that multiplies like rabbits fucking until there's no space for any other feeling. His chest gets tight with it, like there's not even any room for air around the feeling anymore.

It's true. All the bad things people say about him are true. 

He _ is _ a monster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna ask again. Please say something about what you think of this chapter!


	10. The end of you

_ Monday, October 7th, 1985 _

Mornings are always the worst for El. Jonathan's always running around getting things ready for one thing or another, Joyce is always smashing her purse around like she's trying to break something as she heads off for work and Will's quiet but in this really loud way where he drags out the same chair at the breakfast table every morning and swings his legs back and forth, back and forth until he bangs his knee on the table then starts all over again. _ Whip-whip-bang. Whip-whip-bang. _ Sometimes he throws in an "Ow!" for good measure, but not always.

El's used to quiet. She's used to the sound of nature outside her window and the smell of Eggo waffles. 

She's used to her dad popping his head in to make sure she's awake, then knocking on the door to make sure she's dressed, then a third time to tell her that her Eggos are gonna get eaten before they get cold. 

Here she does all that by herself. Not that she'd ever needed the reminders, exactly. It was just a thing they did. 

And now they don't.

She waits until everybody's gone off to do their own things before coming out of her room. She grabs a box of cereal out of the cupboard, slams some into a bowl with some milk and eats it quick. She goes to put the box back before thinking twice, stuffing the box into her backpack. She's not sure how long it's gonna take her to find Billy and she figures she might need it later.

She doesn't.

She finds Billy at the first place she thinks to check - the graveyard. She can smell something bad as she walks up to him, something familiar that she can't quite place. He's also sort of leaning to one side, like he's having trouble standing upright by himself, leaving her to wonder if the bad smell has something to do with it. 

She doesn't wonder for long, though, the memory of her dad leaning against the railing of the back porch at home in just the same way hitting her right between the eyes in the next moment. She remembers that smell, remembers how her dad would try to hide it when he was having a really bad day. She figures this is the same, figures from the look and the smell and the way Billy's leaning like standing is just too hard right now, maybe is too hard now all the time, that this must be a bad day for him. So she grunts, pushes her shoulders back and her chin up like Max has taught her "means business". This isn't going to be easy, she can already tell but she's not about to let that stop her.

"Hey," she says once she thinks she's close enough for Billy to hear her. Billy doesn't respond so she takes a few steps closer. She's almost close enough to reach out and touch him, not that she would, before she says it again. "Hey." 

Billy's head snaps to her sharply, his eyes all squished up, and he snorts. His hand shoots out to rest on the top of the large stone thing with Steve's name carved into it like he's protecting it. There's a big purple bruise that's just visible over the collar of his jacket and up close the smell is even worse. "What are you doing here?" he asks. 

"I know," she says softly. 

"You know what?" 

"I know you loved him." 

Billy snarls, sounding a lot like the animals she came across in the woods in the winter before she had a home. She puts her hands out to knock him back if she needs to, forgetting for a moment that she doesn't have her powers anymore. "And what are you gonna do about it?" he barks. He _ looks _ a little like a wild animal, too.

"I want to help," she says. She takes a step back just as he stumbles forward then falls to the ground in a heap.

He scowls, rights himself as best he can then points at Steve's grave. "He’s dead. That's not something you can _ help _ with," he says, snarling again in a way she knows is supposed to be threatening but only makes her feel sad. He looks at the grave like he wants to be in it and she wishes she didn't know anything about that exact feeling, but she does. It's why she's here.

"That might not be true," El says. She sits down next to him, pulling her backpack off as she goes. She unzips the main compartment carefully and fishes around inside for the folder she'd put in there earlier. "I found this while going through my dad's things," she says as her fingers close around the edges of the folder.

Opening it up she reveals to Billy a single page. It's a large photo of a boy with pale skin and long black hair wearing what looks like really ugly, really rough pajamas. There’s a stamp on the bottom of the picture saying _ Hawkins National Laboratory - Experiment 009 - DOB - August 22nd, 1964 - Talent - timeline manipulation. _ She waits for a moment then flips it over to show Billy the information scrawled on the back in big, fat black marker - a name, _ Vincent Price, _ with the word _ Nashville??? _ written underneath it.

Billy leans in and looks down barely long enough to read what the photo says before leaning back and glaring at her.

"Okay," he says, drawing the word out weirdly. There's a look on his face like he's not quite all here that Eleven both doesn't get and is really uncomfortable with. He licks his lips and looks away before saying, "But going back a bit, you said you knew I loved Steve. What do you mean by that exactly?" 

"Well…" Eleven grabs at a blade of grass near her sneaker, rips it from the ground and twists it with her fingers. "You remember how me and Max found out Steve was… flayed?"

Billy nods. "Yeah, you guys were spying on everyone with your little -" He holds his arms out stiffly and waggles his fingers in a way El assumes must mean powers.

"Yeah," she says with her own nod. "Only I saw something else that day. You and Steve were holding hands and kissing." She takes a breath, picks the blade of grass in her hands to pieces, then watches as it blows away into the wind before saying, "Like me and Mike do."

Billy's eyes narrow and he gets that wild animal look on his face again. El throws her hands up in warning. "I didn't tell anyone that part," she says. "But I saw." Without meaning to she shudders, causing Billy to give her another look, this time like he's confused. 

"What's with the twitch?" he asks. 

She shrugs, her whole body slumping to the side; she tries to keep up the whole "means business" thing but she can't. She's too tired.

"Remembering," she says. 

"Remembering what?" 

"I saw you holding hands with him but then he saw me. He saw me and he got up and he pushed me out." 

"And that's how you knew he was flayed," Billy says, finishing for her.

She nods. 

"I'm sorry," she says. She looks at the big stone with Steve's name on it. "If it was Mike…" 

"Whatever," Billy says. He looks down but not before she catches the way his eyes are shining like he's about to cry. She remembers the way he tried not to cry that day and it _ hurts._

"I should've saved him," El says. "I should have."

Billy snaps his head back up to look at her again, his eyes are still shiny but now he's got an eyebrow arched. "You're fourteen," he says, like it means something.

"You're seventeen," she says. She doesn't get what either of their ages has to do with this.

"And I couldn't save him, either."

Eleven nods. "But maybe we could fix that." She taps the picture. 

"Right," Billy grunts. He stares at the picture. "What the hell is timeline manipulation, anyway?" 

Eleven shrugs. "I don't know. But it might help." 

Billy makes a face. He huffs out a breath and the bad smell gets worse. "Wait, I get it. You just want me to drive you to Nashville so you can try to save Hopper, don't you?"

This time El's the one who makes a nasty face, she can feel it spreading without really meaning for it to. "No." 

Billy leans in towards her, mean as any wild thing. "Yeah," he says. "Yeah, you do. You came here all soft and sad and pretending like you're here to help me but you just want a ride." 

"No!" Eleven shouts. She pushes his shoulder and he topples over too easily for how lightly she pushed him. "We can't bring my dad back without opening the Upside Down again. He wouldn't want that. I can't fix that."

Billy sits up but doesn't look at her. 

"But maybe we can fix this," she says. She grabs the photo and the folder and stuffs them back into her backpack. Billy looks at Steve's grave, then back at her, then back at Steve's grave. Thinking. 

"Okay." He gets to his feet with great effort. "I've done dumber shit for dumber reasons, let's go."

He offers her a hand up and as she takes it she can feel his hand shaking. She wants to mention it, wants to ask why, but she doesn't.

"Like right now?" she asks. He does not look like he's able to drive all the way to Nashville right now and she doesn't want to let him.

"No," he huffs. "Right now I'm going to take you back to wherever it is you're supposed to be. 'Cause I'm guessing it's not here." 

"I don't think you're supposed to be here now, either," she says before she can think not to.

"You would be correct," he says. "Not that it matters."

Again she wants to ask why, but again she doesn't. The sad look in his eyes is something she doesn't need explained.

They spend the walk to his car planning the trip for tomorrow. It makes El feel better than she's felt in weeks. Like finally she has something she can actually, really do. Finally a goal. A plan. Something.

She'll take anything at this point that isn't sitting in her room, packing up boxes and crying over things she can't change.

\---

The next morning, Eleven tries to get out of the house as fast as she can but she's held back by the sounds of Joyce hunting for her purse, Jonathan cleaning the kitchen and Will just generally taking forever with whatever it is he's doing. 

She taps her fingers on her legs as she sits on her bed, waiting. And waiting. And waiting. 

She groans and flops back on her bed then looks at her watch, the new one Joyce got her last week. She's late. They haven't even started anything yet and already she's late. 

She groans again, louder this time and drums her fingers on her legs some more. _ Tap tap tap. Tap tap tap. _The sound her fingers make against her jeans echoes in her head and makes her more nervous. 

_ Tap tap tap. _ Seconds pass with each tap and with each second her goal, her plan, her _ something _ gets farther and farther away.

From the kitchen Joyce calls out, "El, honey, are you okay?" 

_ Tap tap tap. _

"Yes, I'm fine!" 

_ Tap tap tap. _

She's really not.

"Okay, well, there's some cereal left out for you! We're heading out now!" Joyce calls out. The door slams shut a few seconds later and El passes the time until she hears Joyce's and Jonathan's cars driving away by pacing. 

She waits two whole minutes after they leave before slipping out the back door. It's as long as she can stand it but it's still, as it turns out, too long to have waited because she finds Billy already sitting in his car, waiting outside his house when she gets there. 

She bites her lip. She was hoping maybe he would be late, too. She was hoping maybe he wouldn't notice, that it wouldn't matter but here he is, waiting and looking like he's been doing it for a long time. 

She watches the way he drums his fingers along the outside of the car door _ bang, bang, bang _ in time with the music blasting out of his stereo, head bobbing along, sunglasses on. His movements look practiced, easy, but she also sees the tense way he's holding himself under all that ease and she shivers. 

She gets close enough to notice that there's no bad smell today before he notices her, startling enough for his sunglasses to shake. 

"Jesus!" he shouts. "Fuck, warn a guy next time, would you?" He waves a hand at the passenger's seat in a way she assumes means he's telling her to get in it. "Don't just do that creepy, silent shit where you just show up," he says. 

She nods and only just puts her hand on the door when Max skates up, glaring at her, then at Billy.

"I knew something weird was going on when you asked me to get to school by myself this morning, Billy, but I never would have expected _ this._" Max spits the words out like they taste bad and gets all up in El's face. "You're not dating this asshole, are you?" She leans over El's shoulder to stare at Billy before adding, "Because Mike can be kind of a jerk sometimes but trust me, Billy is _ worse_."

El reacts on instinct. "Ew, gross!" 

Billy does the same, throwing in a, "That's disgusting!" almost instantly afterward. 

Max leans back slightly but doesn't remove herself from Eleven's space.

"So what the hell are you two doing together then?" she asks, the anger she's wearing all over not fading in the least.

"We're going to Nashville to save Steve," El answers simply.

"What?" Max looks confused, like Eleven's answer only brings up more questions.

Billy leans over so his face is as close to either of them as it's going to get without getting out of the car.

"Look," he says with a grunt, "it's a long story and an even longer drive so please just get the hell out of the way."

Max shoves Eleven's hand from the passenger side door where it'd been resting to yank the door open as wide as it'll go. Without asking she climbs into the backseat, almost hitting Billy in the face with her skateboard in her rush to get there. "Like hell I'm leaving you alone with my best friend for who knows how long. I'm coming," she says.

Billy shakes his head slowly, the light reflecting off his sunglasses in a way that scatters over the front seat of the car. "Sure, why not, I've already lost my goddamn mind." 

El can't help but wonder if that's true. If maybe she's lost hers, too. She hasn't felt right since her dad died and this is not a very good plan. It's more of just an idea than a plan, really and now here she is, standing in front of this car with her best friend and her best friend's brother. And what does she think this will fix, again?

"Hurry up and get in already," Billy barks. She slides in without a word and he puts his foot on the gas almost before she gets the door closed. 

Maybe they've all lost their goddamn minds. 

\---

It takes an entire hour before Max starts asking questions. 

"So, what the fuck are we doing, exactly?" she asks, her hand reaching out to lower the volume of the crazy loud music coming from the stereo. It makes El breathe a sigh of relief when Billy doesn't immediately turn it back up. She hasn't been able to say so, but she really hates it. It's too loud for music. There's too much yelling.

"We're driving to Nashville," Billy says. 

"Yes, jackass, I know, but why?" Max demands.

Billy's hands twitch on the steering wheel. "Show her," he says. It takes El a second to realize he means her, means the photo in her backpack, but once she does she quickly gets it out and hands it over. 

Max takes it better than Billy did. "So we're hoping this guy can bring Steve back?" she asks after less than five seconds of looking at the photo front and back.

Billy shrugs, looks like he doesn't believe it, like he thinks this is what El once heard her dad call "a fool's errand". She'd had to ask him what an errand was, but once she got it, she remembers that she'd disagreed with the idea. 

She disagrees with it now, too.

This isn't a fool's errand. It can't be. They can't be out of their minds. This is the only thing that will put their minds back together. She has to believe that.

"You didn't need to come, Max," Billy says slowly. His hands wrap tighter around the steering wheel again and it makes El twitch. It reminds her of something dark, something bad, something she doesn't want to think about.

"I told you I'm not leaving you alone with my best friend but also…" Max sighs. "I figure if I help you get your friend back you'll stop being such an insufferable prick and stop driving me to school drunk, so yeah, actually, I did." El sees in the rearview mirror the way Max looks uncomfortable after she says this, sees the way she crosses her arms across her chest and looks down. Eleven doesn't get why Max can't just admit that she's here for Billy as much as she's here for her. 

Then a thought occurs to her. There's a word Max used that she doesn't know but she thinks she might get anyway. 

"Is that what that smell is?" she asks. "Drunk?"

"Yeah, probably," Max says. Billy cranks the music back up but Max just shouts over it. "When?"

"Yesterday, at the cemetery," El shouts. "He smelled bad." 

In the rearview mirror El sees Max's whole body go tense, frustrated. She leans forward, hands squeaking on the leather of the seats where she grips them. "You skipped school to get drunk in front of your friend's grave? Really?" she asks. 

Billy barks out, "Fuck off, Max," almost before Max is finished. Eleven wishes he wasn't wearing sunglasses, wishes she had a better view of his eyes right now, wishes she knew what he was really feeling.

"No," Max says. Blunt.

"I hate you, you know, I really do," Billy says back.

Max smiles but it's fake, twisted. "I doubt that," she says. 

"No, I mean it. I really fucking hate you." 

"Well…" Max grips the seats tighter, her fingers going white at the tips. "I hate you less than I did yesterday."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a bunch of stuff. 
> 
> 1\. This chapter was HARD because writing from Eleven's pov is HARD so it took a while.
> 
> 2\. Some people guessed some of the big plot stuff before or got real close and that was really cool! 
> 
> 3\. Please tell me what you think of this chapter if you're reading it. Even just one good or bad thing. It really helps.


	11. You are not who I thought you were

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Better settle in and get comfortable because this chapter is LONG. 
> 
> Also, Neil and Susan make an appearance in the third section of this chapter so this is me warning you that this chapter contains abuse.

_Tuesday, October 8th, 1985_

The second they pass the Nashville sign Max pops an aggressively loud bubble with the bubble gum she's been chewing for - she checks the clock in the dashboard - an hour now. The gum started out tasting like strawberry, fresh and ripe on her tongue, but now it just tastes stale and bitter and the only reason she hasn't spit it out long before now is it's her last piece and she has literally nothing else to do. Except maybe the homework she's still got half-unfinished in her backpack, which, no, thanks. Chewing stale bubblegum isn't better than much, but at least it's still better than doing homework.

Beside her, Billy twitches, his shoulders continuing their slow climb to be one with his neck. He's been getting more and more surly and dickish the closer they get to the city limits and now that they're in the city proper Max is just waiting for him to explode. She keeps debating on whether or not she'll do anything about it if and when he does and ultimately figures it'll probably come down to whether or not he snaps at El. 

Like if he snaps at her, that's fine, she's used to it, but El? Nobody gets to say or do anything mean to her. She's been through enough and if Max can protect her she will.

"So…" El says slowly, like slowly even for her and Max perks up, curious about what she's going to say next. "We should stop soon and look up Vincent's number." 

Max's stomach lurches just as the car hits a pothole and Billy curses. "Wait," she says. "Is that your whole plan?" 

"Yes?" Eleven says, sounding appropriately nervous, like she at least knows the plan is dumb.

Billy, on the other hand, refuses to meet Max's eyes, just stares out the window and cranks up whatever dumb scream-heavy metal tape he's been blasting this entire trip and it sets something off in Max.

"Seriously?" she shouts, reaching out and punching Billy in the shoulder. "That's your whole plan? Drive all the way out here and look up this guy's phone number in the phone book and what, just call him and hope that he's home and that he'll help?" 

Again, Billy's response can barely even be called a response, he just grits his teeth until a muscle in his jaw starts to tick and he grips the steering wheel more tightly. Again, it sets something off in Max, this time darker and more foul than the last.

"Seriously?" she says again. She uses one hand to turn off the tape deck and the other to punch Billy in the shoulder, harder this time. "Seriously?"

"Actually," he grits out and now he looks at her, gives her this look that's just over the edge of feral and has her scrambling back to the far edge of her seat. "My plan is to find this guy if I have to comb through the entire city to do it and then camp out on his doorstep until he comes home and force him to give me what I want, until he brings Steve back because Steve is -" he cuts himself off abruptly before he gets to saying what Steve is, though Max has a sneaking suspicion he was probably going to say something along the lines of "everything" which is something Max has no idea what to do with so she turns her head to the window, to the sprawling field of grass before them and imagines throwing the information out into that grass and out of her mind.

"Okay, sorry I asked," she mumbles, drawing her feet up onto her seat, still staring out the window. She avoids looking at Billy and avoids the thoughts she's starting to have about him. 

"Whatever," Billy says. He turns his music back on and not another word is said until they pull into the parking lot of a cheesy, busted up looking diner five minutes later.

They all crawl out of the car the second the engine's turned off, all stiff and sore and aching and as Eleven pulls open the door to the diner Max is assaulted with the smell of fresh cooked french fries, fresh baked apple pie and something heavenly but indistinguishable aside from the way it makes her mouth water and her stomach grumble. She hasn't eaten since breakfast and she's suddenly hungry enough to eat the vinyl off the big blue spinning stools at the diner's long front counter. 

She scrounges through her pockets and her backpack looking for spare change but comes up empty. She looks to Billy but before she can so much as ask he says, "I don't have any money," and walks off to smile at a waitress and ask her for a phone book, which she gives him, plus a cup of coffee _on the house_ and a booth for them all to sit in while they look for _their lovely friend's phone number._

She drops a single menu between Max and Eleven to share, gives them a glare like she's certain they won't order anything anyway and walks off with her heels click-clacking and her hips swish-swishing in her too-tight uniform in a way that's clearly all for Billy's benefit and that he doesn't notice at all. He's already got his head buried in the phone book. 

It's weird - the waitress is gorgeous; she's all long, lean legs, soft skin, long, fluffy brown hair and big, doe-like brown eyes. She couldn't be any more Billy's type if she'd researched it and constructed herself to fit but there's no response from him at all and Max isn't sure if she should be ignoring that or if she should be keeping score of all the weird little things he's done so far today but she distracts herself by looking at the menu full of food she wants and can't afford. 

The waitress swings back around with the coffee pot a minute later, bending over next to Billy suggestively, even going so far as to press her arms in against her chest to deepen her cleavage as she refills his cup, but she might as well have not even bothered to show up at all for all the attention he isn't giving her for her efforts.

She stomps off in a huff that means she'll definitely be back to try again and still, nothing; Billy just flips a page in the phone book, his finger sliding down the list of names, focused on his task like it's the only thing in the world he could possibly be doing right now, like it's the only thing there is to care about, like the waitress wasn't ever even there in the first place, like maybe she doesn't even exist at all.

And Max would think it's a bit he's doing, that he smiled and flirted with her and is now ignoring her just to get her to like him more - it's certainly something she's seen dozens of guys do hundreds of times before, but it doesn't really seem like that's what this is because every time a guy is doing that, at least every time Max has ever seen it, the guy doing it stares at the girl he wants every time her back is turned and Billy hasn't looked up from the phone book, not once. 

"I have about four dollars," El says as she fishes change and a few crumpled dollar bills out of her pockets, like they're in the middle of a conversation and somehow Max just missed it.

Maybe she did. This weirdness with Billy is really getting to her. 

"You want to share something?" El asks, smile bright and curious and too hopeful for something this inconsequential. 

"Yeah," Max says, offering her own smile in return. She's going to miss El so much when her and the Byers' leave town. The Party just won't be the same without her and without Will.

"French fries?" she says, her voice cracking with her sudden need to avoid crying but she can't stop thinking about it. El's the first female friend she's ever had and now she's abandoning her just when the boys are getting dumber than ever.

"I also have enough we could share a piece of pie," El says, all happy and man, Max is gonna miss her. She's gonna miss her so much.

"Sure, that'd be great," Max says.

She looks over at Billy and sees he's got the phone book open, his finger on a name and he's looking out the window at the Camaro and everything behind it. He looks so sad, so broken, like… so _heartbroken_ and _human_ and _sad_ that it makes Max uncomfortable. 

She's always been perfectly happy with their roles. She's always been good with thinking of him as an antagonist in her life and nothing more but ever since this summer that's been changing. 

This summer she saw glimpses of Billy's humanity, saw the way his friends treat him, that he has real friends and… it's been making her recalculate things in her head. She doesn't like it. She came on this trip to protect her best friend, not to learn more about Billy the Human Being. 

"Find something?" she asks him, the equilibrium of her voice's usual sharp edge firmly returned. 

Billy grunts and shakes his head. He won't look her in the eye but Max is sure his eyes are tear-bright. "Maybe," he says. 

She leans in to look at the name printed on the page just under his finger - _Vincent Price - #2 2131 Acklen Ave. Nashville - 615-848-7149_ \- just as above her, El says, "We'll have one order of fries and one piece of cherry pie with two forks, please," to the waitress who grunts as a response and walks off.

Max digs through her backpack and grabs her notebook, ripping out a page and writing the information down on it - they'll need it for later and she's not about to let Billy rip a page out of the phone book and risk getting their waitress (or someone else) in trouble just because Billy is an ass and doesn't think about things like that. She rips the extra space off of the page and is about to pass it over to Billy when El says, "Wait," and grabs the pencil out of her hand without asking. 

Eleven scribbles her phone number down in her messy, barely legible handwriting and taps Billy on the shoulder.

"Here," she says as she slides the piece of paper across the table to him, "in case you ever need to call me." 

Billy's tongue darts out over his bottom lip as he looks at the paper and just when Max thinks he's going to say something terrible and mean and she's going to need to protect El like she's been preparing all day for, instead he ducks his head and says, "Thanks," all soft and quiet, like that's a thing that he can just do now.

The waitress arrives with their french fries and their cherry pie soon after that and Max busies herself asking El all about her new house and her new life while Billy just stares out the window like a guy that's lost everything and doesn't really hope he can get it back and Max still doesn't know what to do with that so she imagines throwing it out into the parking lot, imagines it melting into the asphalt and tries her best to listen to El go on excitedly about her new bedroom in a way they both know isn't as sincere as she's pretending it is. 

\---

2131 Acklen Avenue is, as it turns out, a honky-tonk bar with what looks like apartments above it. Maybe. Possibly. If you squint real hard.

They'd called this guy, Vincent Price, from the diner's phone after they'd finished their food and it had turned out luck was on their side after all, he _was_ home and he _was_ available and they _could_ come over _right away_, if they wanted. 

Max doesn't like it. 

She hadn't liked the sound of the guy's voice on the phone, hadn't liked the too willing way he just invited strangers into his home like it was just part of what he did for a living and she hadn't liked the look on Billy's face during the entire conversation, so hard and so desperate at the same time, but she also knew that there was no way they were leaving town without finishing this so here she was, standing outside of a honky-tonk bar grasping El's hand and watching the vein in Billy's neck pulse half in what she knew he'd never admit was fear and half in the sort of rage she knew she'd be hearing about later. 

A man drunkenly stumbles out of the bar, the saloon-style doors attached to the front of the building swinging wide with the effort. Country music pours out of the bar as the alcohol pours out of the drunken man who is now clutching on to the pink stucco wall of the building for dear life. Max catches Billy sneering, probably at the music but maybe at the guy and then watches him fumbling around in his pockets, eventually fishing out a cigarette and a lighter. 

The shadows that splay out over his face from the way he holds his hand over his cigarette makes Max's stomach flutter and then clench like it's releasing something nasty into the rest of her body and she shivers. 

She has a bad feeling about this. What if this doesn't work out? What if they're wrong and this guy can't help? Billy hadn't exactly been clear over the phone, so for all she knows this guy could've thought what they wanted was to buy drugs off of him and then where would they be? If this doesn't work, what will Billy do? He's already chomping on his cigarette rather than really smoking it, almost like he wants to break it in half, like he wants to - 

_No,_ Max thinks, _this is a bad idea and we should leave, _just as El squeezes her hand tighter and Billy takes a deep breath and says, "Let's get this over with."

They head in through the rickety side door of the building and up some equally rickety (and dangerous looking, Max notes) stairs before knocking on a small brown door with a rusty bronze_ '2'_ on the front of it. 

For a second there's no answer and Max feels her heart rocket up into her throat. 

Billy knocks a second time and the same voice Max had heard on the phone earlier calls out, "Yeah, yeah, just give me a second!" Then, more quietly, "Jesus!"

There's the sound of things being rustled around, then the door is cracking open, revealing the most perfect match up of a face to a voice Max has ever seen. The guy is tall and thin, reedy, and is coated in about an inch of oil and grease, like he doesn't know what a shower looks like, let alone how to work one. He is every inch the sleazy slimeball his voice made her think he'd be and she's certain the guy has to think they're here to buy drugs. 

"Can I help you?" the guy says, running a hand through his long brown hair. It's just as oily as the rest of him and just as discomforting. 

"I called about twenty minutes ago, you told me to come over," Billy says, voice neutral in a way Max is pretty sure she's never heard before. She didn't know neutral and Billy were things that could ever go together, and yet, apparently, here they are.

"Oh," the guy says, suddenly all smiles. "Right." He steps back and waves a hand at his dimly lit, crappy apartment. "Come right in."

Billy steps inside without a second's hesitation, again, so desperate but Max stops short and shares a worried look with Eleven before they both follow Billy inside.

The second they're inside and the door is closed the guy looks them all up and down like he's assessing a threat and it makes Max's stomach plummet into her shoes and makes El's face twitch like she's about to raise her hands, like she's preparing to fight if she has to but then her face goes slack like she's remembering she doesn't have powers anymore. It's something Max has seen her do at least a dozen times in the past month alone. 

Max gives El's hand another squeeze and gives her a look she hopes gets across the thought that while those powers of hers might be down, Max's fists still work just fine.

"So," the guy says, looking directly at Max and her balled up left fist and the death grip her right hand has on Eleven, "I'm Vincent, in case some of you don't know and what exactly were you looking for, again?" 

Eleven is the first to do anything. She whips her backpack off her shoulders in an instant and hands over the picture of a younger (much younger, much less disgusting) Vincent to him. "We know about your powers and we need your help."

"Huh," he says, like he's been handed an essay with a slightly less than awesome grade on it or a receipt with the wrong price, something mildly interesting, not what must be his biggest secret in the whole world. "Well, that's certainly the weirdest way anyone's ever figured out about what I do but, yeah, you got me. Now what exactly did you need?" He looks over at Billy. "You were kinda vague over the phone." 

It's such a weird response and Max has so many questions, starting with _weirdest way anyone's found out?_ Like he's done this before? But before she can ask Billy's tongue flickers out over his lower lip, same as it did earlier and he says, "A friend of mine died and I need you to bring him back," sounding so eerily calm that Max decides to drop all of her questions right there on the spot.

Vincent nods like this makes perfect sense and heads to the back of the room where an old, yellow fridge stands beside a plastic folding card table with a microwave on it, which is apparently what passes for a kitchen in this 'apartment'. The fridge is empty except for a can of beer and a jug of milk and he grabs the beer, taking his time popping the tab, looking or pretending to look, like he's thinking. 

"All right," he says, slowly meandering his way back over to them. "I can do that, I've done it a couple of times before, but I'll warn you now, there are no refunds and this person you want back, they won't come back the same, they never do." 

"That's fine, I don't care," Billy says. He's still radiating that same calm but it's starting to crack. 

"Alright, two things," Vincent says as he slams down half of his beer in one long gulp, the muscles of his obscenely long throat working in such a visible way that Max feels one of her eyes start to twitch in revulsion. "First, I need a name and a picture."

"His name's Steve Harrington," Billy says as he takes his wallet out of his pocket. "And I have a picture right here."

He carefully removes a folded, clearly worn photo out from the back of his wallet and Max finds herself leaning forward to see what it is as he unfolds it. 

It's a picture of Billy and Steve standing in front of Billy's Camaro in the high school parking lot with their arms wrapped around each other and they're both… looking at each other and smiling. Like real, genuine smiles.

And…

Billy has just been carrying this photo around in his wallet this entire time. 

And…

He didn't pay any attention to the waitress at the diner. 

And…

He stopped himself from saying Steve is… whatever big, important thing he was gonna say Steve is when she asked him about his plan to get Steve back.

It's like a code is being cracked open in front of her and Max has to dig her thumbnail into the side of her leg to stop from making a noise as it all comes together. Billy and Steve aren't friends. Billy loves Steve. Like she loves Lucas. Like Eleven loves Mike.

And in that instant, in that one single second, everything makes sense. The hairspray. The tight jeans. His disdain for every girl he's ever been with. His anger and his rage.

Neil. 

Max sees it all now. There's been a common thread running through everything this whole time, she's just been too blind, too ignorant, too stupid to see it.

Billy's gay. Billy's gay and they're not here to save his friend but the boy he loves. 

How could she not have seen this before? 

She looks over at Billy and finally, she understands. This is what grief looks like. That's what this has been. Grief over losing someone you love. 

She'd thought he was just fucked up because of the situation, because of the way things had gone down, like she doesn't know Steve all that well but seeing him die like that... its done things to her. Its given her nightmares she has to scream into a pillow about just to deal with. Dustin, who viewed Steve half as a brother, half as a best friend, has been destroyed by what happened. And Billy and Steve were friends and she figured Billy was just worse at handling it than the rest of them were.

But that's not it. 

It's so much worse than that. Billy isn't just messed up, this isn't just something bad that he can't get over. This is his whole life destroyed. 

"What's the second thing?" Billy asks, impatient. 

"Hmm?" Vincent's staring at the photo, has a hand raised to his face, the edge of a hangnail on his thumb between his lips. He looks like he's trying to decipher the hidden meaning of the photo and Max feels a swelling wave of protectiveness overcoming her but this time it's not for El. This time it's for Billy. 

"You said there was a second thing," Billy says, all previous calm completely eroded. He looks like he's about ready to stop using his words and start letting his fists do the talking, but Vincent doesn't seem to notice. He looks up at Billy, his eyes half glazed over and he nods. 

"Right," he says. "There's a price." 

Billy stands up a little taller. This guy has a few inches on him but Billy's got a lot more muscle and takes up a lot more space. "How much?" he asks.

"Just." Vincent sucks his bottom lip between his teeth and looks back down at the photo. "You know he won't be the same, right?" 

Billy blows out a long breath, giving the impression of a bull just looking for red. "And I told you I don't care. I don't care if he comes back and marries Nancy fucking Wheeler, so long as he comes back." 

Vincent nods his head and hands Billy back his photo, which Billy hastily but gently puts back into his wallet. Vincent seems to take this as some sort of sign and Max knows nothing good can come of the look he starts giving Billy. She glances over at Eleven and Eleven just shrugs. There's nothing for either of them to do right now and they both know it.

"Now how much?" Billy barks.

Vincent leans back, stretches, lazy and relaxed as anything. It's several good, long seconds before he says, "Five thousand dollars. And no refunds."

Billy's eyes almost pop out of his head. "Five grand? How the hell am I supposed to get that kind of money? Rob a bank?" 

Vincent shrugs. "If you have to." 

"I…" Billy starts but doesn't finish. It's the first time Max has ever seen him speechless. There's a long pause before he says, "I need some time to think," and storms out. 

Max follows him out on autopilot, dragging El along with her and just as her foot hits the first step on the staircase she hears Vincent calling out, "Take all the time you need! I'll be here all day!" It almost sounds like he's laughing at them, the bastard.

Ahead of them, Billy grunts like the noise has been punched out of him and Max feels the same protective urge rising up again, pictures walking back up the stairs, back into that apartment and slugging that loser right where it hurts most. 

She almost does, but then El squeezes her hand again and she doesn't, just follows Billy as he flies out the door and prowls around to the front of the bar to pace in front of the Camaro.

"Five thousand dollars…" he groans, hand raised to pinch at the bridge of his nose, eyes closed. "_Five thousand dollars_, how the hell am I gonna…" He stops. Opens his eyes. He looks at his car. 

His eyes widen in what Max knows is the dumbest plan he could possibly have, knows that he must _love_ Steve because she knows he _loves_ that car and to even think of giving it up for anybody…

"Uh, guys?" Eleven says softly, causing both of them to whip their heads towards her in a way that has her jumping hard enough that the hand still gripping tightly to Max's shakes a little bit.

"I think I have a better idea." She lifts her arm up so her sleeve slips down enough to reveal the small, black tattoo printed on her forearm. "I think we can offer him a trade."

They head back upstairs after they talk it over but just before Billy raises his fist to knock on the door, Max pulls Eleven aside and says, "Are you sure you want to do this? To tell this guy about you and what you know? This could be really dangerous." 

Eleven nods. "If it'll bring Steve back, I have to do it."

Max squeezes Eleven's hand again and Eleven squeezes back. Max's hand got all numb and sweaty forever ago, but no way is she dropping it now. 

Billy spares the two of them a glance but pretends he doesn't and raises his hand to the door. It swings open after just one knock and Vincent is standing there, giving them a curious look. He waves them in, same as before and they all step inside, none of them hesitating this time. 

"That was the fastest bank robbery I've ever seen," Vincent says, smiling at his own cleverness. It makes Max want to punch him. Billy too, if the way his knuckles crack is any sort of indication.

Eleven moves forward, towards Vincent, dragging Max with her and awkwardly shoves her sleeve up with their clasped hands. "We have information to trade," she says. 

Vincent stumbles forward a step, mouth literally hanging open as he stares at her tattoo. He seems to recognize it instantly as he blurts out, "Wait. You're from Hawkins, too?" and this time, this time he actually sounds appropriately freaked out. 

"I am. And there's a lot about that lab and the people there that I can tell you if you'll take the deal," El says. She has her chin up and her shoulders pushed back, all business, and it makes Max wants to smile, but she holds off, not wanting to give anything away in front of Vincent. She doesn't want to think about what he might do with it, what he might interpret from it.

Vincent cocks his head to the side aggressively. "Hmmm." He clasps his hands behind his back and shuffles over to Billy. "I think I'll take her information, if it's good, plus what you've got in your wallet and that should about cover it." He nods sharply at Billy's pocket and at his wallet before looking back at El and Max and smiling. "Man's gotta eat," he says.

Billy grunts but removes his wallet again. He pulls five bills out and hands them over. "Hmmm…" Vincent says again, making Max want to punch him _again_. He licks his fingers before flipping through the bills, counting them. "Is five hundred all you've got?"

Billy nods sharply. "Yeah," he says. "Five hundred dollars is all I've got." 

"Well…" Vincent rolls his eyes to the ceiling like he's thinking real hard. "I almost never work this cheap, but you guys are real cute, so I guess that'll have to do." Vincent stuffs the money in the back pocket of his faded jeans and sighs like he's the most magnanimous human being on the face of the earth. 

"Was that…" Max finds herself unable to stop from asking. "Was that…"

"All my summer job money, yeah," Billy says.

Vincent laughs like that's the best joke he's ever heard. "Summer job money." He shakes his head. "Now aren't you just precious."

Billy grits his teeth and steps up to Vincent, his fists rising, fight response fully engaged.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Vincent says sweetly. He doesn't move an inch, just looks down at Billy with the brightest of smiles. "I'm the only one who can bring your _friend_ back." 

Billy still looks like he wants to punch him. Max _really_ wants to punch him. But Eleven clears her throat and says, "If you want to hear my story, I can tell it to you now," and exactly as intended it has Vincent turning to her with his full attention.

Billy folds his arms across his chest and kicks the wall. 

Eleven tells Vincent everything. She tells him about the lab, about how all the children's parents were told that they were dead, about how her mom was pretty much killed by the lab, about how the lab got shut down and then she gets to a part of the story Max has never heard before - about a girl from the lab with powers like them named Kali and how she's out there getting revenge on the people from the lab for people like them.

When she finishes, Vincent is smiling, but like a real smile this time, none of that passive-aggressive, nasty bullshit he'd been doing before. 

"Thank you," he says and it's the first sincere thing Max has heard him say since they've been here.

It doesn't last for long though as two seconds later he pulls that old "I don't care and I'm a sleazeball" mask right back on. "Alright," he says, rubbing his hands together, "let's make this happen."

He steps into the middle of the room and holds out both of his hands. "Okay, so we have to all be holding hands while I'm doing this. Partly because I need the connection with the people whose lives I'm altering and partly because you need the connection with me so you don't forget what happened here today."

It's a very matter-of-fact explanation of a very unusual thing and yet somehow he manages to make it sound like he's trying to sell them a used car.

Billy steps forward and grabs one of Vincent's hands with a look like he's sticking his hand in a toilet and El goes next with a look that's not far off, leaving Max to complete the circle.

"Are you going to be joining us or what?" Vincent asks. 

Max shakes her head but says, "Yeah. Yes, uh, yeah." She can feel the tension gathering in every corner of her body and doesn't miss the dirty look Billy gives her as she grabs his hand.

"Okay, now that we're all ready..." Vincent says. He closes his eyes and Max watches as Billy does the same. She and Eleven both keep their eyes open, El squeezing her hand tighter as Vincent's nose starts to bleed just like El's used to. Max squeezes back and prays, to who she isn't sure, she's never been religious before this moment, but she prays that this works. 

Because Billy is an ass, but he doesn't deserve to have to live with something like this. He deserves to have someone who makes the crap hand he got dealt by life just a little bit easier. He deserves to be with the boy he loves. 

He deserves for this to work. And so does Steve. 

Vincent lets out a long breath, opens his eyes and drops their hands. 

Nothing happens.

"I don't feel any different," Max says. She fights against it but she can feel her heart starting to rattle around in her chest again. The smug look on Vincent's face makes her wonder if maybe he really is just a used car salesman and he just sold them a lemon. Like maybe his power is actually something useless, like making milk curdle and that's what the milk in the fridge is for and that's how he escaped the lab. He was so useless they let him go.

"Did it work?" El asks bluntly.

Vincent rolls his eyes. "It'll take a few days, but it worked, yeah." He rubs his grimy shirt sleeve at his nose. "When it changes, you'll know." 

Billy narrows his eyes, balls his hands up into fists and for the first time ever, Max hopes he punches this guy. "And we're just supposed to believe you on that?" Billy says.

Vincent smirks, raises his thumb to bite at his hangnail some more. "This is why I get payment upfront. Because I know you don't. No one ever does."

Billy raises and cracks his fists. Max only barely stops herself from cheering him on. 

Vincent takes a step back, but he's still smirking. "Do that and I can take it all back."

Billy drops his hands to his sides, fists unclenching as his whole body sags towards the floor.

"Nice doing business with you," Vincent says. "Now if we're quite done, I have some other shit to do."

Billy's nose curls up like he's about to say something mean but instead he just shouts, "Eleven, Max, we're leaving, let's go," and storms out of the room. 

This time, Max says something. "You're a bastard," she calls out behind her as Eleven drags her away. 

\---

It's dark out by the time Max and Billy get home and again, Max has a bad feeling. She looks over at Billy and she knows he feels it too. It's like there's something in the air, something sharp and spiky, foul and acrid. 

Something _dangerous_.

Billy turns the headlights off, then cuts the engine and for a moment they both just sit there in the silence and the darkness, not speaking, not moving, barely even breathing. 

This is big, what they've done, it's big and now there are gonna be consequences.

The porch lights turn on and Max gets hit with a wave of nausea so violent it makes her dizzy. 

"Let's get this over with," Billy says as he steps out of the car. He's got this wary, resigned look on his face that Max realizes she's seen before. This time she feels bad for him for it and that… feeling bad for Billy? That's definitely going to take some getting used to.

They walk inside and there's Neil and her mom, waiting for them right by the door, like guard dogs. They don't even get to taking their shoes off before Neil is screaming, "Where the hell have you been? What the hell did you _do_?" at Billy. 

Billy shakes his head and averts his eyes and doesn't say anything. It's the second time Max has ever seen him speechless and it freaks her out, seeing him defanged like this. 

Neil charges forward and shoves Billy up against the door with a bang and Billy lets him.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you!" Neil snarls, hands gripping so tight to Billy's shirt it has to _hurt_. 

Billy slowly raises his eyes to meet Neil's and for this obedience, Neil slaps him.

"What the hell did you do? Do you have any idea how worried we were? We've been out all night looking for the both of you! We almost called the police to report Max as missing!" Neil roars and as he roars, his face turning a shade of red that in any other situation would be funny, but isn't, not right now.

Max hears her mom sob loudly; she imagines there are probably tears flowing down her face unchecked but she can't take her eyes off Neil and Billy. 

"I'm sorry, Sir," Billy says quietly. He has to fight to keep his eyes on Neil and Neil slams him against the door again. Billy's head hits the glass panel in the middle of the door almost hard enough to break it, the sound is near deafening and for the first time, Max looks over at her mother and wonders why she isn't doing anything to stop this, but she's just standing there, wringing her hands and bawling like a child. Doing nothing.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Neil screams. "I've tried so hard to make you into a man worth knowing but then you go and you pull a stunt like this and you make it clearer to me than ever that you're never going to be deserving of my respect, of _anyone's_ respect. You're just a waste of time and you'll only ever be a waste of time!"

He drops one hand from Billy's shirt, drawing it back almost in slow motion and Max knows Billy sees it coming but he doesn't even flinch, he doesn't even flinch and that, that is what finally has Max shouting, "It was for me!" 

Neil's fist re-directs last second, going from aiming for Billy's face to his collarbone, landing with a crack sounding so solid it leaves Max imagining deep, dark purple bruises and has her flinching and fighting not to throw up. And Billy? Billy just takes the hit, his only reaction to the pain being that he swallows roughly and dips his head for half a second. 

That's it, half a second and he's back to looking straight at Neil.

"It was for me!" Max shouts again. "He's covering for me! Me and Jane took the bus to her new house and didn't have enough money to get tickets back. Billy came and got us." The lie flows more smoothly off her tongue than anything else ever has but Neil doesn't quite look like he believes it, looks pissed he's lost an excuse to punch his own son some more.

Susan hiccup-sobs from spot frozen a few feet back and for the first time instead of making Max want to comfort her, it makes something mean and dangerous feeling bloom in her gut, makes her angry. 

Neil's face twists and he looks from Billy to Max and back to Billy. "Is this true?" he asks Billy, a fist still gripping tightly to Billy's shirt, still pressing him up against the door.

Without so much as looking at Max or even blinking, Billy says, "It is." 

Neil drops his hand from Billy and turns to Max and as he does it's like a light switch is flipped, the expression on his face going from one of pure rage to one of soft understanding so, so fast it makes Max's skin crawl. 

"Max," Neil sighs gently. "If you wanted to go, you should have just asked us. We would have taken you." 

Max shrugs and does her best to look repentant like a normal kid getting a normal lecture from her normal parents and not like she's just had her whole worldview violently shattered. "I didn't know if you'd let me and I wanted to see it before she left," she says. 

"And it's better to ask forgiveness than permission, right?" Neil says, smiling. There are even tears shining softly in his eyes, like he's a normal parent and this is a normal lecture and it makes Max want to scream. It makes her want to find Steve's old nail bat and threaten Neil with it. 

Instead, she nods and says, "Yeah. I'm sorry," all the while knowing that this is going to be added to the rotation of her nightmares and that she's going to be spending a lot of time picturing hitting Neil with that nail bat and anything else she can imagine from here on out.

"Well, next time ask, okay?" Neil says softly, _so softly_ and Max can't believe she ever bought into any of his crap. Like she knew he and Billy didn't have a good relationship, she wasn't dumb, she'd noticed, but this is the first time it's been like this, this is the first time Neil's hit Billy in front of her, this is the first time he's done that and then done this, turned and looked at her like he loves her, like he's a concerned parent, like he's a normal person right after saying such mean and awful things to his own kid. 

Because Billy, she realizes, is like her, is still just a kid, no matter how much older he looks or what kind of car he drives. He's still just a kid.

Tears spring to her eyes at the thought and Neil rushes forward to hug her, clearly thinking she's crying for entirely different reasons and it makes her feel like she's never going to be clean ever again, no matter how many showers or baths she takes.

"We were so worried about you," Neil says as he strokes her hair. Max looks up at Billy and sees the rage building up inside of him, she can see it in his eyes and in the stiff way he's holding himself.

"You terrified us half to death!" Susan wails, rushing forward to get in on the hug. After a moment she holds her arm out to Billy, to include him, but it's clearly an afterthought. 

Billy doesn't move a muscle, just stays right where he is, feet planted like he's bracing for another hit. But no other hits come. Instead, Neil just ruffles Max's hair, ends the hug and drags Susan off to their bedroom. 

Max waits until she hears their door click closed and their tv turn on before she looks over at Billy. He looks like he's halfway between rage and tears and one hundred percent looks like he's going to shatter, either way. 

There are so many questions she wants to ask, so much she wants to say, so much she wants to do, starting with stealing his car keys, shoving him into the car and driving him to the hospital to get his collarbone looked at but…

She can't. She knows she can't. She knows that just because she has a better understanding of the way things are now doesn't mean he does. Just because he hasn't forced her away after what just happened, that doesn't actually _mean_ anything.

It might actually be a bad thing, honestly, with the way he's staring blankly ahead like he is. So she does the one thing she's actually brave enough to do and grabs him by the hand and drags him outside. 

He lets her and it makes something inside her twitch; Billy is not supposed to be this quiet, not ever. He's all rage, all fire, all…

Isn't he?

She can feel tears starting to well up again and if Billy notices, he doesn't say anything. She puts it off like she's just cold, even shivers and rubs at her nose like it's running - because it is - and even stomps her feet a couple of times to add to the act. 

They stand there in the not-quite silence for a few minutes, the laugh track from whatever show Neil and Susan are watching echoing through the walls and making Max actually shiver. Because how can they…

How can they just…

Settle in and watch a sitcom like nothing happened? How can they…

The tears start encroaching again and this time, finally, Billy notices.

"Don't," he says, voice all sharp and weirdly brittle. "Don't be crying over me. It's weird."

She sniffles and decides fuck it, if she's gonna cry, she's gonna cry and yeah, it's over him and his stupid fucking boyfriend and this stupid fucking day and their shitty fucking parents and her shattered fucking worldview. 

"Fuck," she curses. She wipes at her nose openly. "I…" She doesn't know what to say. 

"That about covers it," Billy says. He pulls out another cigarette and this time the flame from the lighter as he flicks it on illuminates his face rather than casting it in shadow; it's oddly fitting for the day they've had and it makes her skin itch with the need to ask, to know more, to see if maybe she can get more illuminated than just his face, makes her want to see all of him lit up like that. 

She wants to ask about Neil _so badly_ and someday she will but for now the scariest thing she can think of is for Billy to get that blank stare on his face again and for him to stop talking, so she goes with something else. Something she hopes is easier. Something good.

"It's not just-" She swallows. "You really miss Steve, don't you?" 

Billy looks over at her, face unreadable in a way that has nothing to do with the dim lighting on the porch and for a moment Max thinks he might just up and walk away without answering. 

"Don't tell anyone," he says, finally, words coming out as sharp as knives, like he thinks she's trying to attack him. Which, considering everything both tonight and in general, makes sense.

"I won't," she says, solemn but loud. 

It takes a long moment, long enough for Max to start holding her breath before he says, "Okay."

"Do you…" Max whispers, watching as he blows out a long plume of smoke. "Do you love him?"

He turns to her and again he looks so _heartbroken_ and _human_ and _sad_ it breaks her heart. This time it breaks her heart. "I drove all the way to Nashville and gave a crazy man all of my money on the word of a fourteen-year-old girl that it would bring him back. What do you think?"

She nods and shoves her hands in her pockets. "I think I hope this works." 

He nods and they stay out on the porch together until they're both shaking with the cold and have no choice but to head back inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, please leave a comment telling me what you think! This is probably one of the longest, most story revealing chapters of this fic so far and I have FEELINGS about it. 
> 
> Also, I have a tumblr! [ Come talk to me there if you want.](https://gideongrace.tumblr.com/)


	12. Kiss you like we're in a movie

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. I got very distracted by my christmas exchange fic and discord and editing and prompts, but. I am still working on this fic because I love it desperately.
> 
> Also, there's actual kissing in this part! And then Steve has a Big Busexual Panic.
> 
> EDIT: So… I meant to mention The Terminator but then got it confused with The Terminator 2 and I want to say it's probably because the other movie mentioned in this chapter is Nightmare 2 but that doesn't even entirely make sense because the whole reason Steve kisses Billy is because Kyle Reese kisses Sarah Connor and that's definitely not in the second one, so I was just out to lunch or something. 😊 But fortunately Makeupdiva mentioned it in a comment and it's now been fixed.

_ Friday, November 15th, 1985 _

It's been about a week, or almost a week, before things really come to a head and Robin's cornering Steve in the back room at work with that feisty look on her face, the one that says there's a problem and she's decided to use her brain to fix it.

"Movie night," she says, "My place, tonight after work. You're coming if I have to drag you." 

Steve eyes her curiously. "And you'd have to drag me because?"

She huffs, tries to look irritated, but she's obviously nervous - it's crackling so close to the surface of her skin it's almost like he can see it.

"Billy's going to be there," she says, quiet, brittle.

"Oh," Steve says, the noise of it punching out of him. It feels like those five words have drawn all the air out of the room. Billy's going to be there. Billy's going to_ be there._ _Billy's. Going to be there._

Five words and suddenly Steve feels like he needs to sit down.

He's been avoiding Billy since that day on the bleachers and he feels like an ass for it. He just… he doesn't know what he's supposed to do, anymore. It doesn't feel right. Like more and more he feels like he's just taking up space in someone else's life, like he's taken something from someone else and he just keeps thinking of Billy and…

It's not that…

Like he knows he wants Billy, memories that are entirely his own or not, he knows he feels how he feels because he knows what he wants is what he wants. Like that much he knows _ belongs to him. _

But Billy?

More and more he feels like he belongs to someone else. Like Billy probably wants someone who isn't him but rather someone who just happens to have the same face as he does.

And that…

That makes Steve's head hurt. A lot.

"Steve?" Robin asks, clearly nervous, almost twitching with it. "You okay?" 

Steve raises a hand to his face, covers his eyes, closes them, nods anyway. "I'm fine," he says.

His name should just be Steve "I'm fine" Harrington, at this point, honestly, with how much people have been asking him that lately. He is, though. He's fine. Really. "I'm fine. A movie night sounds good."

"Okay," Robin says, sounding like she doesn't at all believe him. "Take a minute if you need to."

She puts a hand on his shoulder, squeezes briefly, and leaves the room, leaving him to his thoughts and the darkness he can feel settling in behind his eyes. 

\---

Billy is waiting for them outside Robin's apartment building when they get there and Steve can see the tension in his shoulders, the way they're steadily creeping up and up and _ up _ from halfway across the parking lot. It makes Steve's insides squirm and his knees go weak and his palms start to sweat and by the time they get to Billy he's just a complete mess. 

"Hey," Billy says, curt, and something in the bluntness of that single word crushes something in Steve like it's a cement block and he's the softest, most easily flattened thing in the whole world; he must be, if that one word is hurting him so much.

"Hey," he says back with the world's dorkiest little hand wave which Billy nods at but then he also looks like he's trying to fight off a scowl, so, ultimately Steve doesn't know what to think, doesn't know what's going on.

Beside him, he can feel Robin getting prickly and tense, actually irritated this time rather than merely pretending to be just to save face. 

"So I've got _The_ _Terminator,"_ she says as they start heading inside. "And we can either watch that or if you'd rather we could skip my place and head out to see _ Nightmare on Elm Street 2_."

As she speaks it's made clear she's decided to just barrel her way through this, act like things are fine, like they're all just friends and this is any other Friday night, like if she pretends everything is alright, then that means it is. 

Steve risks glancing over at Billy as they step into the elevator and Billy gives him a look that says he agrees with him rather than with her - this is _ definitely super weird _ and they are most _ definitely not alright. _

"I vote _ Terminator_," Billy says as he looks away from Steve. "I've already seen _ Nightmare _ and Steve here would hate it."

He even bumps Steve's shoulder like they're friends, like he's decided that even if he _ agrees _ with Steve, that this is _ not alright _and things are _ not fine, _ he's going to go along with Robin's plan of pretending like they are, like it is, because that's easier for him.

He still won't look Steve in the eye, though, and that hurts Steve more than he wants it to, more than he'd ever admit if asked. 

_ But… _ somebody asking would mean somebody admitting to the problem and clearly, that's not going to happen here today so Steve says, "I probably would," all quiet but still determined to put a good face on it anyway.

"You'd love it though, Robin," Billy says, then lower, more conspiratorially, "It's one of the gayest things I've ever seen." 

And Steve, he just keeps staring at Billy. He wants to get on board with their plan, he does, but all he can do is watch Billy as he and Robin have a whole conversation about all the _so_ _obviously_ _gay_ movies they've seen. All he can do is stare at Billy and Billy _won't look at him_ and things are so _not fine _right now.

And yet.

_ And yet. _

When they get into the apartment and Steve sits down on the floor in front of the couch, Billy sits next to him, like this is just a thing they do, like Billy's knee pressed up against his is normal, natural, casual so Steve decides to actually get on board the whole pretending-things-are-fine train, even if it's just for tonight because at some point he became embarrassingly, achingly soft and he needs the heat seeping through Billy's jeans and into his own leg like he needs the air he's breathing. 

And _ that _ is _ utterly _ and _ truly _ pathetic, he knows he is. But instead of admitting to that, he says, "So what's this movie about, again?" as Robin puts the tape in and hits play. 

"This robot from the future comes back to kill this woman that's going to give birth to the guy that's going to save all the humans from the robots in the future," Robin says as she climbs onto the couch behind him, behind _ them. _

"Huh. I don't think I've seen that," Steve blurts out then bites his tongue, afraid he's ruined the whole pretending-it's-fine bit already by admitting he hasn't heard of something Robin and/or Billy have already shown the other version of him.

Robin sighs and for a second Steve holds his breath, but then she says, "That's because you're hopeless," and Steve has no idea if she's saying that because it's true or just as a part of this game that they're all playing, but when he looks back at her she's smiling at him, so he decides to go with the first one. Because, he decides, even if it's actually a lie, just for tonight, it's the truth. 

Just for tonight, it's nice to sit and watch a movie with his friends, with the people he loves. It's nice to make jokes and throw popcorn at Billy for being obnoxious. It's nice to pretend, just for tonight, that he's a normal guy, a normal person not dealing with… whatever the fuck is happening to him.

But then… 

But then there's this scene in the movie where Kyle Reese is kissing Sarah Connor and Billy's leg is still pressed up against Steve's, hot like a branding iron, and Steve snaps and before he's even thought it through, he's leaning over and he's kissing Billy.

And this kiss?

It's the best thing Steve's ever tasted, ever experienced, ever done. It's a hundred times better than the memories and it's a thousand times better than kissing Nancy because this is real, because Billy is real, is right here and is kissing him back, is wrapping one hot, possessive hand around the back of his neck as the other is moving into his hair. Billy is anchoring him here, holding him down and Billy is moaning into his mouth, moaning with so much desperation, his tongue pressing into Steve's mouth with so much sheer force, like he's been waiting, been waiting for Steve _ so patiently _ and -

It's too much. The love flooding through Steve right now is too much, it's burning him up, the room is too hot and he's burning up, burning alive, so he puts a hand to Billy's chest and pushes him back, breaks the kiss, even though there's a part of him that never wants to stop, there's a part of him that wants to drown kissing Billy just like this. 

He wants that, a big part of him really does, but a bigger part of him has hit his internal panic button and he knows that if he doesn't stop he'll burn alive and it won't be cute, it'll be real, like there'll be real scars if there's anything left of him at all.

"I'm sorry," he says, voice kiss starved and harsh. "I'm sorry." 

Billy looks at him like he doesn't get it, like there's something he's missing, like a man that's just been offered everything he ever wanted and now it's being dragged away again.

"Why?" he asks, his voice just as rough but also wearier, so much wearier than Steve's. 

Above them, Robin says nothing and she doesn't move, either, like she's a statue and if she moves or speaks she might break something, might break _ them. _

Trouble is, they're already broken, both of them, Steve knows they are and he doesn't have the slightest idea on what to do about that; there are oceans captured behind Billy's eyes and the waves are crashing onto the shore with such brutality, such ferocious intent, it's honestly a little terrifying.

_But,_ Steve thinks, thoughts tumbling into his head in that unavoidable, car crash on the highway at three am sort of way, the sort of way you later look back at and see for what it is, what it really, truly is - unavoidable, completely outside of your own control - _that's not it, that's never been it. _

He's not afraid of Billy, never has been, even on that night, the one with all the screaming and Billy breaking that plate over his head, the one that left scars that have since disappeared, even then, even in that world, even with that version of Billy, Steve was never afraid of him.

He knows, knows with every single cell of his body and every inch of his soul that whatever Billy's got, whatever he's going to do, he'll take it. And he'll take it gladly. And maybe that's not a good thing in its entirety, maybe Steve's just a little too desperate by nature, by his very design, but it's still the truth. 

He wants absolutely everything to do with Billy, even the bad parts. Even the dangerous ones.

This realization, this startling truth makes Steve's mouth dry up, makes his tongue shrivel up and yet somehow some part of his brain pushes out the words, "I can't do this right now, but we should talk about it?" and he watches, internally frozen as Billy's eyes go sharp, waves cresting big enough to drown not just a man but an entire village and somehow, still, even with this, Steve continues on, like he's not even in control of it anymore, "Like I want to talk about it, I do, but..." he trails off, insides frozen and outsides catching up quick.

"I need some time to sort a few things out." He swallows. Like processing this massive shift, crossing this unavoidable line is something he can sort through, deal with in a few hours after having struggled with it actively for a few weeks now. Right. Sure. "So maybe we could meet up tomorrow? I could come to your place and pick you up around ten am?" 

The waves in Billy's eyes freeze, stock still like they couldn't possibly drown anyone, like Steve's not already gone, not already buried in their depth.

"Tomorrow at ten," Billy says and Steve thinks it's supposed to come out sharp, commanding, but instead it's soft, so soft, like a promise - one Steve intends to keep.

"Ten," he repeats, taking a big step back from Billy and his eyes, from Robin and the tension in her shoulders, the magma quake in her gut Steve doesn't have to see to know is there. "Yeah."

Each step back he takes he feels like he can breathe just a little bit more, just a little bit easier, until finally he's backed into the door, the handle pressing into his spine like a warning and a beacon telling him he can go, like he can, in fact, get out, and he fumbles for it, steps out backward, still staring at Billy until the door is closed in front of him, sealing them off from each other. 

He heaves a deep breath, satisfied, finally, and heads out for the parking lot and his car. 

When he gets in he doesn't put on any music, doesn't do anything but breathe as deeply as he can and grip the steering wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles white, hard enough to hurt. 

There are other parts to this. 

Like it's not just that he loves Billy. Like really, ferociously, deeply loves him to a truly terrifying degree. 

It's also that Billy's a _ guy._

And Steve knows… he knows… he's thought about this before, okay. He's dealt with this before but… 

There's something different about thinking about a guy, about having memories and fantasies about kissing a guy and then actually doing it in real time, in real life. Like all of a sudden, it's real now and it's not just about Billy but that he likes guys in general. Because he does. He _ really _ does.

He still likes girls, that part hasn't changed but… guys… guys are great too and that one kiss, brief though it might have been, it opened up a whole new world for him, a whole new set of possibilities he hadn't actively seen before now.

And as he reaches the center of town another thought occurs to him in a way that has him pulling over and getting out.

_ I like guys and if I'm going to date one, I'm going to have to tell people about it. _

He walks down the street, passing by random people, some he knows and some he doesn't, some he recognizes and some he doesn't, and suddenly he feels completely alien in his own skin, his own life, his own town in a way he's never felt before, in a way that's different from how he'd felt earlier, like he's taking up space in someone one else's life.

No, this… this is like… waking up and realizing he's separate from all the people around him, separate in a way that will always be there, has always been there even when he didn't notice it and it's in a way that's got nothing to do with what timeline he's in. Like no matter what timeline he's in, no matter how any of _ that _ plays out, he's still going to be different than everyone else, always will be and there's nothing he can do about it, never was.

He loves Billy and he has no idea what Billy wants from him, who Billy thinks he is or how badly he might react once he knows, but being with Billy would mean…

Being with Billy would mean, _ will _ mean, because he knows he's going to do it, be with him if Billy will still have him…

But...

Being with Billy will mean painting a target on his back. On _both_ their backs. Even if they leave Hawkins, even _ if _ that, it's not exactly like there's anywhere that's safe for guys like them, not really.

And what is he supposed to do about that, exactly? How is he supposed to deal with this? How does anyone?

He starts to wonder how the other version of himself dealt with all these thoughts, with all these problems and that's when it happens, memories start peeking in through the cracks, slower this time than before, like the memories themselves this time are tentative, afraid, like such a thing is possible. 

There are blurry images of driving down a dark road at night, of a feeling of something crawling along the back of his neck then disappearing, of everything being too hot, images of being at Scoops and Robin staring at him like he's from another world and not being able to do anything as his body just shrugs at her and goes back to cleaning the ice cream freezer, and then - 

And then he's in Starcourt again but this time it isn't Billy staring down the Mindflayer, it's him.

This time it isn't Billy hovering over Eleven like he's going to hurt her, it's him. This time Eleven reaches out to touch _ his _ face and she half says, half chokes out the words, "You are loved, you matter, you don't have to do this," and something in it, something in the emotion in her voice, it has him pausing.

He's completely absorbed into this memory more so than any of the other ones, so much so in fact that he actively feels the urge to drag her over to the monster, feels something pulling at him from somewhere deep inside, something telling him to feed her to it. 

He wraps his hands around her shoulders and plans to keep on dragging her forward to her death and to his own when she says, "You were kissing him at the pool, in the storage closet. He was wearing that white tank top and the whistle around his neck and you had your hands in his hair. You love him."

And he remembers, or… well, the version of him that's kneeling over Eleven remembers, so he drops his hands from her shoulders, somehow catches a flash of gold and looks up at the second floor landing to see Billy standing there, watching him, eyes bright even from here and Steve _ remembers _ so he stands up tall and screams at the monster. Screams and this time he's the one pushing back at it when it goes for Eleven, this time _ he's _ the one getting stabbed.

And he feels it, feels the sharp, stabbing tentacles break through his body and tear him apart, feels it happen again and again, feels his lungs fill up with blood, feels himself choke on it, feels his eyes slam shut and not open again.

He feels himself die.

And this time, when he comes out of it, he's not standing where he was. Instead, he's in this weird, dark space he can't quite call a room because it doesn't seem to have walls, or windows. It doesn't have doors or a ceiling and those are basically all the parts that make up a room, so…

"Hello?" he calls out. He waits. There's no answer. He walks forward and his footsteps echo. He stops.

Something walks forward, somehow simultaneously appearing out of nowhere but also like it's been there this whole time and he just didn't notice it before now. 

And this thing?

It has his face. This _ thing _ has his _ face. _

"Hello," it says and the voice it uses is almost like his own, almost but not quite, there's malice as thick as a river current in it and he - while maybe he used to be kind of a dick, he knows he's never sounded quite like _ that, _ not even on his worst days.

But it keeps walking towards him and he wants to turn and run but he can't. He's stuck. Like he's actually, physically stuck.

The thing with his face keeps walking, it's getting closer now, closer, and all he can do is watch. 

"Billy!" he screams but there's no sound. "Robin! Dustin!"

Still, no sound. He's not even sure his lips moved that time or if he just _ wanted _ to scream. His hand comes up to his throat and the thing with his face is in front of him, now and -

And - 

Its eyes are black and its hands have black tendrils instead of fingers. He jerks back as much as he can while still unable to move his feet but the tendrils attached to its hands just lengthen and trail softly, slowly down his face.

"You're mine," it says. "All mine."

It trails its hand down to his arm then his hand and links them together, intertwining its slimy, black tendrils with his fingers like they're a couple, like he'd wished he could have done with Billy even just the once but instead he's getting to do it with this… this _ thing. _

Then the other… well, what _ was _ the other arm only seconds ago is now a branching, twisted mass of tendrils pulsating in various shades of gray and black, almost like they've been lit up from the inside, but, no, lit's the wrong word, no, whatever this is, it's darker. It's darker and it's wrapping itself all over his shoulder and slip-sliding its way down his back. It's taking him over, he can feel it with each breath, with each and every beat of his heart; he's being dragged further and further away from himself, from his body until everything is hazy, fuzzy, soft and blurry.

He feels his feet moving again, this time of their own accord and he feels its tendrils continue to wind their way around his body, feels like he should be panicking, should be suffering through labored breathing and pain in his chest, but he's not. Everything is calm, his breaths keep coming out slow and even, even as the thing leads him away, he knows not where.

But he knows he's lost. He knows that much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ….And then that happens. :)
> 
> Please leave a comment to tell me what you think! I seriously need the validation, okay.


	13. Every time I've lost you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really love torturing these boys just a bit too much. :)
> 
> Also, Billy has some pretty dark, sad thoughts in this chapter, just as a warning.

_ Saturday, November 16th, 1985 _

It's eleven. It's eleven and Steve was supposed to be here an hour ago and Billy has spent half of that past hour stalking from his bedroom to the living room window, watching, waiting, like he's a fucking _ dog _ waiting for his fucking _ master. _ He's been smoking non-stop, has gone through half a pack this morning already and Max keeps sticking her head in through his bedroom door like she's checking in on him and he's bit his tongue so hard to keep from yelling at her for it so many times now that he swears he can almost taste blood in his mouth.

And then the phone rings and Max gets to it just before he can, just as he's slip-sliding around the corner in his sock feet and it's pathetic, the level of desperation that's bubbling just under the surface of his skin but then she's handing him the phone with one of the saddest looks he's ever seen her wear, the saddest since October, and it figures, it just figures that he'd be the cause of the saddest looks he's ever seen her wear not once but twice now. 'Cause he just draws the sadness out of people, like that's just who he is as a person.

And the desperation in him boils over into something hot and sharp as he takes the phone, fully expecting it to be Steve saying he's backing out, he's changed his mind, he wants none of this, that the kiss last night is the last one from him Billy'll ever get. Instead he's surprised to hear Robin's voice coming out of the phone, saying, "I can't get a hold of Steve, Dustin can't either and Max says he didn't come to pick you up," and she's saying it in a way that has the hot, sharp thing just under Billy's skin snapping into something hard, something brutal, something like armor. 

And he says, "He didn't," closing his eyes as he says it, like if he closes his eyes he'll stop seeing Steve's face coming towards his last night, stop feeling Steve's lips on his, stop seeing Steve running away from him on the bleachers, stop seeing - _ everything. _

"Okay, well…" Robin says, sounding like there's a lot she wants to say but also like she isn't sure if she should and Billy can tell that she's trying to work her way up to telling him about everything that's been going on because she thinks he doesn't know but now he needs to because _ Steve's clearly gone missing _ and he's starting to wonder... if she thinks he doesn't know, then that means Dustin didn't tell her about their conversation in his car, which means there's probably a reason for that. Which probably means that Steve told both Dustin and Robin not to tell him. Which. Fucking sucks. That Steve doesn't trust him, or didn't before last night, at least, but then _ that _ means something else, too, if that's what's true.

Because _ Steve's missing, _ meaning that he probably _ was _ intending to show up this morning, meaning that for the second time now, Billy believed the worst in a situation where the boy he loves might wind up dead. Meaning that everything Billy thought he saw in Steve's eyes last night was true, meaning that kiss meant… a whole lot of things Billy can't stop and get hung up on right now. 

Just more reasons it's all his fault, either way. Just means that he should never have let Steve go home alone, even if he asked to; he should never have let him, not with everything he knows about, everything he knows is going on, everything that's happened.

"Look," Billy says, sharp enough to cut through all the bullshit between him and Robin in an instant, "I know. Dustin told me everything and this - Steve is missing and all the shit that's been going on is why, isn't it? Something probably happened to him."

"Yeah," Robin says, "I think something probably did," not missing a beat because she's just smart like that and because there's no time right now to be anything else _ but _ smart like that.

Billy though, he doesn't tell her about what he's done, about what happened before the past few weeks, doesn't tell her that he's responsible, even though he was supposed to, even though he'd told Eleven that he _ would. _

Because he can't, not right now, because now he has to focus on getting Steve back from wherever the hell he's gone this time and there isn't time to explain it all to Robin, isn't time for the (entirely deserved) bitching out she'll give him for it.

Then beside him Max is putting a hand on his forearm and it's gentle, so gentle, but still it stings, still has the breath jerking out of him like it's been intentionally ripped from his chest and he's never been more grateful in his life that Neil and Susan aren't at home right now because if they were they'd definitely be asking questions about why Max is touching him like he's about to break and why he looks like he's armoring himself up for a fight. 

Because Steve is _ missing _ right now and there's not a chance in hell he could explain why he has to go and find him without it making every single gay slur and every single epithet come flying out of Neil's mouth and that's a fight Billy doesn't really have time for right now.

"Okay, do you have any idea where he might be?" he asks, mind spinning, trying to come up with his own ideas on where Steve could have wound up and not coming up with anything good, anything specific.

There's a pause, dead silence filling up the line (and Billy's brain) before Robin is saying, "No, not really, no." 

"Alright," Billy breathes out, trying not to crack the phone in half and fighting against his urge to throw Max's hand off of his arm. "I'm going to go out looking for him, maybe…" he trails off. _ Maybe _ what he doesn't know. _ Maybe _ he'll find him? _ Maybe _ it won't be too late this time? Or _ maybe… _ nothing. Maybe this was all hopeless. Maybe he did all this, went through all this, dragged people he cares about through all this only for it all to end the exact same way. Maybe this is fate.

He doesn't know. He says as much.

"I'll call Dustin and we'll go out and look too. I'll… We'll…" Robin gulps. "We can meet back at my place at one-thirty and if we haven't found him by then, we'll…" She trails off again, going silent long enough for dread to coil in Billy's gut and make itself a home there. "We'll figure something out."

"Yeah. Yeah, we will."

Max's hand on Billy's arm tightens its hold, undoubtedly a sign that Max is about to say something, about to get herself involved and he wishes she wouldn't but for the moment she stays silent so for the moment, so does he.

"And you've got the keys to my place still, right?" Robin asks, nervous, like he might somehow have lost them or might somehow have forgotten because he hasn't used them in the past few weeks, like that somehow cancels out the roughly one million times he's used them before that, like she doesn't have a massive first aid kit sitting under her bathroom sink just for him, like she doesn't have his favorite kind of soda in her fridge.

"They're still on my key ring, yeah," he says and it comes out softer than he means for it to. "I'll drag him to your place when I find him and I'll let myself in if needed." 

"Okay, good," she says, still sounding so shaken, so nervous that it has him adding -

"We'll find him, Robin," because they will. He will. Because fuck fate. This is all his fault, that's true, he's more than responsible for it, but even if he wasn't, _ even if he wasn't, _ he'd tear apart Heaven, Hell and whatever else there is to find Steve. Which is exactly what got them all into this mess in the first place, but still. He won't stop looking until he knows what happened to Steve. He won't stop looking until Steve is back and safe and where he belongs, with him.

"Okay," Robin says, sounding not quite convinced but like she's going with it anyway and it'll just have to be enough for now, Billy will just have to believe for the both of them until he finds Steve and brings him back. Because he knows he's not the only one who needs Steve, he knows Robin does, too.

So they say their goodbyes and he hangs up the phone and Max's hand is still perched precariously on his arm and he doesn't have to turn to her, doesn't have to look at her before she's saying, "I'm coming with you." 

And he wants to tell her no, wants to tell her to stay out of it, he does, but instead what he finds himself saying is, "Okay," and, "Go get your coat."

\---

They're driving through downtown, avoiding the one place left to go that they haven't checked yet, the one place that should have been _ obvious _ from the start and they're avoiding it because Billy really, really doesn't want to go there; he really, really doesn't want to find Steve there and he _ really, really _ doesn't want to deal with what finding Steve there might mean. 

Then suddenly "Lady Starlight" by Scorpions starts blasting from the tape deck. The words:

_ I see the stars, they're miles and miles away, like our love, lady starlight, help me to find my love, lady starlight__, help me tonight, help me to _ _ find my love - _

are filling up all the space in the car until Billy is twitching under the weight of them, hands jerking and twisting on the steering wheel, shoulders creeping up, lips curling at the edges.

He's sure he looks ridiculous and he should just reach over and change the song or turn the tape off but he can't; he's helpless, powerless as the song plays on:

_ Walking through a winter night, _ _ counting the stars and passing time, snow dances with the wind,__ I wish, I could be with you again._

It's like someone is fucking with him and he isn't sure why, or maybe this is supposed to be a sign from the gods that he should have hope, have hope and go where he knows Steve is.

Because he knows where Steve is, should have known it all along, he just really, _ really _ doesn't want to. 

The song keeps playing:

_ I see the stars, they're miles and miles away, like our love, lady starlight, help me to find my love, lady starlight, help me tonight. _

Billy's about to lose it and he doesn't really know why but then Max reaches over and turns the tape off and in an instant, Billy's shoulders drop and he lets out a breath.

"You know where he is, don't you?" Max asks, though they both know it isn't really a question. They both know where Steve is. They've both realized there was only really ever one place to check. 

"Yeah," Billy says as he turns the car towards the wreckage of what was once Starcourt Mall. "Yeah, I do." 

\---

Billy parks in the middle of the parking lot, close enough to the Mall that it's not too far to walk but also not so close that there's a risk of any of the nasty, rotten, fire hazardous crap still surrounding the mall getting anywhere near his car. 

With a groan that's bordering on a sigh, he gets out, eyeing up the disfigured, disgusting building before them as he does so.

There'd been talk of rebuilding the Mall right after everything had happened, promises of putting everything back just the way it was, no better, that this latest disaster wouldn't get them down, wouldn't destroy their town (the words "this great town" were used a lot, which is something Billy vehemently disagrees with because there's nothing _ great _ about this place, not one single thing), but then the story of the Disaster of Starcourt spread past the boundaries of the town line and people had started to leave _ en masse _ and the Mayor'd had to quit and the problem of what to do with the remains of Starcourt had been put on the back burner until it was forgotten, leaving the building to slowly rot on the edge of town like a tumor slowly digesting itself out of existence. Out of public memory, at least.

Because for most of the town, this is something better left forgotten, better left unexamined, better left just one of those terrible, terrible accidents and not spoken of if it could at all be avoided, even as people spray-painted nasty shit all over the signs leading into town, even as people went mad trying to figure out what had happened to their loved ones because how could they have possibly died in a fire at the Mall when they'd been across town at the Fourth of July celebration less than an hour before? With how bad the fire was, it must have started before that, so how did they wind up inside it? 

It was either go mad pouring over details that just didn't _ make sense, _ that just didn't _ add up, _ either that or forget and most people chose to forget because it was simpler, because it was better, because it was easier. It was better to think their loved ones had died in a fire than to dig at something that couldn't be understood, and even if it was _ understood, _ it could never be _ shared, _ would never be _ believed, _ so it was better, easier, _ kinder _ to the dead and to themselves to just believe the story of the fire, believe, grieve, and move on. 

It was _ easier that way. _

Billy wishes he were easy like that, simple like that, wishes he could forget, could grieve, let go, move on. He wishes he could do like the building itself and sink into the earth and disappear, because that's what it looks like the Mall is doing, like the Mall itself is a living thing that's grown _ tired _ of living and has decided to fall apart bit by bit until it finally just collapses and rejoins the dirt beneath it, leaving behind only a pile of dusty, broken pieces and no real evidence of what it once was, only leaving behind a vague monument to ruin and to sadness.

Billy can relate to that feeling, to that desire; sometimes he wishes he could just up and disappear, too, just vacate the space beneath his bones and leave his body behind. It'd certainly be _ easier. _

"Billy?" Max asks, standing beside him and putting her hand on his arm again, like this is just what they do now and he's just going to have to get used to it. 

He doesn't bother telling Max to stay by the car, much as he wants her to because he knows she'd never listen; but if he's a bit more honest than that, and he is trying to be - the truth is that as much as he's wishing he could get her to stay by the car, as much as he's almost wishing they still hated each other because then she wouldn't be caught up in all this and she'd be at least a little bit safer, he's also sorta grateful that she's here with him, that he doesn't have to do this alone. Because, if he's honest, this is freaking him out. If he's honest, he's only just barely holding it together right now. This has all got him shaking and he aches for a cigarette, for something to do with his hands, his mouth, for just that little bit of comfort smoking always gives him, but he reaches in his shirt pocket and finds it empty, finds himself without anything he can do with his hands, feels like, without anything he can do _ at all. _

But then, he figures, maybe lighting something on fire, which is what smoking is in a sense, in front of a building that burned down would be a bad idea, tempting fate, or something like that.

Bad karma, maybe, not that he really believes in karma anymore because if there's anything loving Steve has taught him it's that while he might be a complete bastard, he didn't, he couldn't have ever done anything bad enough at ten years old for his own mother to leave him behind.

This he deserves, this is his fault, but that wasn't.

"Let's go," he says and starts walking. Max gives his arm a squeeze before falling into step with him and staring down the building he knows scares her just as much as it does him with a look on her face so fierce he can't help but be proud.

"We'll find him, he's here," Billy says, and he knows it's true. He knows Steve is here, he can feel it guiding him like true north guides a compass, can feel it pulling at him more and more with each step he takes closer to the old ruins that encapsulate and represent the worst thing that's ever happened in this town as well as the worst thing that's ever happened to him on the absolute worst day of his life. The worst thing that could have ever happened to Steve. And to Max. And Eleven. And Robin. And all of the others. 

As they approach the doors Max makes this noise and it's guttural and so pained it has Billy looking over at her to make sure she hasn't somehow been inexplicably wounded in the past five seconds but she just points at the doors. "Look," she says.

Billy turns his head back to the doors and it takes him a second to see it, to see what made her make that noise, but then he does, then he understands and he feels his mouth go dry, feels himself lose all capability for speech, all capability for sound at all.

There's fresh blood on one of the door handles.

He knows Steve's inside. 

And there's fresh blood on one of the door handles. 

He feels like he's going to be sick.

Instead, they walk inside using one of the doors that _ doesn't _ have blood on it and Billy can hear Max taking a deep breath behind him and letting it out slow just as they enter.

Neither of them says anything as they walk through the Mall, their footsteps, their breaths, echoing in the cavernous, deathly silence of the place, making Billy think of a tomb. That eerie silence, that lack of noise is incredibly tomb-like but it is by far not the only thing to give the place that spooky, creepy, tomb-like quality; there's also the musty, smoky, heaviness of the air and how dusty, how frayed, how chipped and how shattered, how broken everything is. The disrepair, the sheer misery touches everything in the place from the signs above the shops to the ceiling tiles to the tiles on the floor to the murky, foul, dark and dirty water in the fountain that was once beautiful and sparkling.

There isn't any garbage littering the place though, nothing new, anyway, like even the homeless aren't desperate enough to sleep here, like the place is cursed, is frozen in time, trapped inside the event that made it look this way. 

Billy tries to think of other things, of the place when it was all lit up, of Steve working here with that dopey, stupid, cute sailor hat on, of those stupid shorts he wore and Billy remembers being in the giant, walk-in freezer with Steve and stealing ice cream, remembers running his hands up and down Steve's back to warm himself up as they kissed until their lips were bruised and raw, remembers Steve smiling, that dopey, stupid grin Steve always seemed to reserve especially for him. Billy remembers all of this and lets the feeling of it lead him to the center of the mall, to just under the skylight where it all happened and where he knows they'll find Steve. And they do. They find him exactly where Billy expected they would.

Exactly where he expected they would and so much worse off. 

Steve is kneeling in the middle of the floor and the light is fractured from all of the snow crowding the skylight, fractured and hitting Steve's skin like starlight, making him glow like he himself is a star high up in the sky and so far out of Billy's reach that to try is ridiculous. 

(Not that Billy wouldn't die trying.)

There's a river of dried blood trailing from Steve's nose, down his face to his shirt, like his body decided to have a fire sale and that all the blood must go, but worst of all, worst of all is the way Steve doesn't react to their approach, just stares dead ahead, not blinking, not seeing, barely existing at all.

Max makes another guttural, wounded noise once she's close enough to see all this and she stops just at the edge of the pool of light Steve's trapped in even as Billy keeps going. 

Billy walks up to Steve and kneels before him, puts a hand on his neck, over his pulse and reassures himself that Steve's still alive and for a moment, that's all he does, just sits there with his hand on Steve's neck and breathing in and out. Tries to, anyway. It's hard with the way Steve just keeps staring off into the distance like that, like there's nothing here, like there's nothing to see, nothing to be done. Like it's all already over and his body is just waiting to catch up with his mind.

"Are you-" Max calls out from her spot by the edge of the light, but she doesn't finish and Billy doesn't ask, "Are you what?" because it doesn't matter. 

Everything that matters is sitting in front of him motionless right now and he has no idea what to do. 

He tries shaking Steve's shoulders, softly at first, then harder, then almost violently, but the only response he gets is Steve's body jerking wildly like a rag doll each time he shakes.

He tries calling his name. "Steve." No response. "Steve." Still no response.

"Steve, please," Billy grinds out, his voice harsh and demanding. _ "Please." _

But there's still no response. Steve just continues to stare straight ahead, unblinking, his eyes seeing nothing. He's still breathing, Billy can feel the breath ghosting from Steve's parted lips on his face, can feel Steve's shoulders moving with each breath under his hands. His eyes, though. The way they stare dead ahead is exactly the same way they looked the day he died. 

"Please," Billy says again, voice raspy this time. Please wake up. Please be alright. Please come back to me. 

But no matter what he does, no matter how hard he pleads, there's nothing. There's no response, just Steve staring straight ahead, breathing but not living. 

"Fuck," Billy curses.

He picks Steve up and cradles him close to his chest, trying not to freak out completely, trying not to picture the last time he carried Steve out of here like this, reminding himself that this time Steve's still alive, still breathing. Reminds himself that that matters, convinces himself it's not over yet, that there's something else to do even if he doesn't know what yet, reaffirms his earlier vow to tear apart Heaven and Hell to bring Steve back from wherever he's gone, tells himself that this still isn't the end, not yet, it can't be, not while he's still got Steve in his arms like this.

And this time he kisses the top of Steve's head like he wishes he'd been able to do last time and he sends one final prayer out to a God he hopes will decide any minute now to stop hating him that things end differently this time. He offers up anything and everything he's got in the service of this God if only it'll bring Steve back. 

There's still no response, though, just Steve breathing against him and staring dead ahead like there's nothing left to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is finally starting to wrap up and I am so pleased with it! 
> 
> Please leave a comment and tell me what you thought, I always greatly appreciate it!


	14. You're not here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who commented on the last chapter, I really appreciate it! 
> 
> Also, just a warning, there's sorta some unintentional but serious homophobia from Dustin in this chapter. Boy does not handle some things well.

_ Saturday, November 16th, 1985 _

Robin stands by the window and stares. Drums her fingers against her leg in time with the runaway train that is her pulse thundering in her ears. 

She looks over at the phone hanging innocuously on the wall just as Dustin says, "Maybe we should call?"

She shakes her head. "No." It's only twenty minutes after one, there's still ten minutes left before Billy and Max are supposed to return. They've got time. There's still time. 

They can wait. 

Behind her, someone sighs and she turns around to find that it's Mike. Dustin had suggested they gather the others, that maybe they'd have some ideas on where to look for Steve, but gathering them all together had taken just about all the time she and Billy had agreed on spending to look so rather than actually doing anything useful like _ actually _ looking for Steve she'd wound up just driving the rest of the kids to her apartment to wait for Billy and Max and it's clear from the look on Mike's face that he's bored even though they've only actually been waiting about ten minutes.

"Okay, explain to me why we're here again?" Mike asks, the words coming out of his mouth sounding just as bored as the look on his face implies he is.

It makes Robin's skin prickle. He’s been filled in on the details of what’s been going on, at least as much of what’s been going on as Robin and Dustin know, anyway, but Robin also knows that he doesn’t have much of a connection to Steve, neither him nor Lucas do.

Still, he knows about the weird, fucked up shit that goes on in this weird, fucked up little town they all live in, he knows _ something _ is up right now. He shouldn’t need a personal connection to Steve to care. That something weird and fucked up is going on should be enough, and yet… and yet, he says _ that. _

Robin is debating on whether she’ll call him on it or just leave the question unanswered, or maybe she’ll just call him an idiot and call it a day when Dustin's arm, then his whole body, shoots up.

"We're here because Steve is _ missing!" _ he shouts, all pent up aggression and frustration with nowhere to go. "My _ best friend _ is _ missing!" _

"Yes, but -" Mike starts again and this time Robin catches something different in his expression, something softer and she wonders if maybe she'd judged him too harshly before, but then before he can finish whatever he was about to say, there's footsteps sounding down the hall, which causes both her and Dustin to hold up their hands to get Mike to stop talking, which he does, though it's clearly under protest. 

They listen and wait as the footsteps get closer and Robin thinks she hears grunting she's only vaguely able to guess _ might _ be Billy before her front door is banging open and she hears grunting that is _ definitely _ Billy while Max is saying, "Be careful with his head!" 

Billy groans out a: "You could help, you know,” in between grunts and heavy, panting breaths. 

“I _ am _ helping,” Max says. “I opened the door.”

Robin can barely hear her words over the singular thought repeating in her brain. Max had said, "Be careful with his head," _ his _ meaning… 

Meaning...

Robin doesn't have long to get her hopes up before Billy is barging into the living room with Steve in his arms and for a second, just one second, Robin feels relief settle into her chest. But then she sees all the blood all over Steve and the way his eyes stare dead ahead unblinking, unmoving and it makes the breath catch in her throat like she's the one that's dying, like she's the one that's dead instead of Steve. 

And Billy catches the heartbroken, despairing look on her face as he goes to set Steve down on the couch and he shakes his head. She thinks it means the worst has happened until Max says the opposite, says, "He's not dead. He's still breathing, see?"

So Robin watches for a moment, for way too long for her to ever feel even remotely okay ever, ever again and all she sees is one of her best friends sitting on her couch dead and lifeless but then she looks closer, looks past all the blood and the vacant, dead-eyed gaze and she sees the shallow rise and fall of his chest, sees that Max was right.

He is alive. 

Steve _ is _ alive.

Not far from her, Dustin audibly chokes and she looks over to see a flood of tears already cascading down his face and instantly he’s got Lucas and Mike standing on either side of him, pressed in close like they're ready to hold him up if they need to, which, judging by those tears and the noises slipping from Dustin's wide-open mouth, they will.

And suddenly, Robin isn't sure if Max was talking to her or to Dustin. Or, going off the closed-off, wounded look Billy is wearing and that he just won't take his hands off of Steve, maybe Billy had needed to hear it, too.

"Okay," Lucas says once Dustin stops crying his big, fat, crocodile tears. "What the hell is going on?" 

"Uh…" Max says. 

"Well…" Robin hedges. 

"We don't have time for this, we need to call Vincent Price and then Eleven," Billy says with his hand on Steve's knee like he thinks touching him will tether him here, will keep him breathing. 

"Right," Max says, just as Robin says - 

"Who?" 

And Mike snarls - 

"What's El got to do with this?" 

Lucas and Dustin, mercifully, remain quiet but Billy doesn't. He snaps his hand from Steve's leg and marches over to Mike, stares him down but also tries (and fails) to not be too confrontational about it when he says, "She was there when all this started." 

Mike looks like he's going to shove Billy. Thankfully he doesn't, 'cause if he did there's no way there wouldn't be an all-out brawl in the living room, like a broken furniture, bloody noses kind of brawl because Robin knows Billy loves to fight and from what she's seen of Mike, she knows he hates to lose.

But instead of throwing a punch Mike throws his words instead, saying, "Why'd you get her involved? She left town to get away from all this, she didn't and she doesn't need you dragging her back in!" which really, is just as dangerous in a situation like this. 

It causes Billy's hands to clench into fists at his sides but Mike doesn't seem to notice; Max does, though and she throws herself in between the two of them in a way Robin thinks must be to get them to stop, but then Max says, "This all started just before she moved and she's her own person who can make her own decisions, _ Mike," _ and it's clear from the way she spits his name whose side she's on and what she's really doing - she hasn't jumped in to end or prevent a fight but to start one.

There are battle lines being drawn with each breath each of them takes, with each sidelong glance that gets shared and it's making Robin feel twitchy.

She looks at Steve, at the way he isn't looking at anyone, isn't seeing anything and she notices the increasingly shaky, shallow way his breaths seem to be falling from his body and she doesn't know much about what's going on right now, but she knows _ that _ can't _possibly_ be good and that he can't possibly have long stuck like this. 

And still, the conversation in front of them keeps going on anyway, even with this ticking time bomb sitting right next to her. 

"Okay, but, I mean…" Mike says, drawing in a big breath, looking like he's chewing on his words and trying to figure out the best way to put them. His eyes trail over to Max. "But you know what he _ looks like, _ right?" 

Max's whole entire face scrunches up. "Excuse me, _ what?" _

Mike points a finger at Billy that has Billy's nostrils flaring. "He's your brother, but you get what he _ looks like, _ right?" 

Lucas nods abruptly, mutters, "Huh," then after a beat adds, "really, dude?" with the most disappointed tone possible. "_That's _ your issue?" 

Robin sucks a breath in between her teeth, watching the back and forth playing out in front of her like a tennis match. A tennis match being played with a live grenade. And worse? A live grenade that half the players don't even know exists. A live grenade half the players think is just a regular, old tennis ball.

"Wait, what's his issue?" Dustin asks, completely adrift in this sudden sea of tension they've all found themselves in. 

Max opens her mouth to answer but Billy beats her to it. "He thinks I have some stupid, moronic_ interest _ in his girlfriend," he says to Dustin. Then, to Mike, "That about right? That about sum it up?" 

"Well!" Mike spits, somehow managing to be both incredibly furious and incredibly awkward all at the same time. _ "Do you?" _

Billy grits his teeth and again his nostrils flare and this time he adds blowing a loud breath out of his nose to it, making his transformation into the image of a bull about to charge complete except for the fact that_ he hasn't actually charged yet _ and honestly Robin's impressed with the level of restraint he's showing. She's halfway to smacking Mike herself and Billy has a much worse temper than she does.

"Look," Billy says after long enough has passed that Robin was honestly wondering if he was going to say anything at all or if he was just going to try to stare Mike to death. It’s a plan that might've worked, if the way Mike's fingers are twitching, almost trembling at his sides is any indication. "I'm just going to flat out tell you this because you're the kind of dumb that won't accept any other answer and we _ really _ don't have time for this right now, so, no, I _ don't _ like your little girlfriend. Not that it wouldn't be gross anyway, but I don't like girls. Any girls. I'm gay." 

The grenade goes off. 

But not in the way Robin expected. 

"I knew it! You're obsessed with Steve!" Dustin shouts. "I knew it! I mean, I didn't know _ that_, but I knew there was something _ off _ about you! Something _ wrong!__"_

Before she can think, Robin is flying off the couch and aiming herself straight at Dustin.

_ "Watch it, Henderson," _ she snarls just as Max groans loudly, cutting off whatever else was about to come flying out of Robin’s mouth. 

"They're in love with each other,_ you idiot!" _ Max shouts and then immediately afterwards slaps her hands over her own mouth, the realization of what she’s just said, the secret she’s just set loose coming on just a moment too late. 

It takes a long moment and then all Dustin can think to say is, “Oh,” and again, it has Billy’s nostrils flaring and his knuckles cracking as he clenches and releases his fists several times in quick succession.

“Yeah, and if you’ve got a problem with it,” Robin says, “you can leave. Because this is my apartment and I’m gay too.”

She makes her way back to the couch and sits down as coolly and calmly as is humanly possible. She levels each of the boys with a look, letting them know that this is her home, this is her kingdom, these are her people and either they can deal with that, they can face her wrath or they can leave. Those are their options.

Those are their _ only _ options. 

“No, I just…” Dustin says, eyes screwed up in some indeterminable mix of pain and sadness, of anger and confusion. “Really?” 

Another grenade goes off and this time it’s one Robin didn’t see coming.

"Wait a minute…” she says. “What _ does _ Eleven have to do with all of this?”

She looks at Billy and then at Max. “You said she was there when all this started but that means…” she trails off as her stomach drops. “You know when all this started.”

Max’s eyes go horror movie wide as she realizes what Robin is saying.

“And why. And who is Vincent Price, anyway? Because part of me wants to make jokes about _ The House on Haunted Hill _ and _ The Last Man on Earth _ but I’m pretty sure you don’t actually mean the actor Vincent Price and that leaves me wondering just who the hell you _ do _ mean.”

“Wait, okay, you mean…” Max rounds on Billy. “You didn’t tell her?” Her shoulders push back and tense up at the same time. “Did you tell anyone?”

She looks over at Steve then looks back to Billy, the look of horror in her eyes beginning to color the rest of her face. “Did you even tell Steve?”

Billy sucks in a breath. “I didn’t. No.”

“Wait,” Dustin says, and that single word, Robin thinks, is starting to lose all meaning. “You knew? You knew something about whatever this is and you didn’t tell us?” 

“I feel like I shouldn't be here right now,” Lucas chimes in as Max rolls her eyes and says - 

“Wasn’t exactly my story to tell.”

“Me, too,” Mike says to Lucas as Billy mimics Max’s eye roll from just seconds ago and says -

“Didn’t seem to stop you from telling it a few minutes ago.”

“Part of me wants to just run away but my feet seem to be glued to the floor,” Mike says. 

“Mine, too,” Lucas says. “Maybe it’s the floor.”

The two of them seem to be completely removed from the drama unfolding around them and Robin instantly regrets going along with Dustin’s plan to bring them into all of this. She sees now that Dustin really only wanted them here for emotional support for himself and out of some weird, misguided attempt at keeping his old group together rather than just admit the truth - things have changed since the summer. 

More than she’s aware of, apparently, considering everything Billy _hasn’t_ told her. And here she’d thought they had no secrets from each other. 

Well. 

It takes less than a second for her to realize the hypocrisy of that particular statement. Pot. Kettle. Black. All that. Because she’s kept things from him, too. Sure, maybe it was because Steve asked her to, but still, she’d done it. She'd still kept things from him.

She tunes back into the main conversation to hear Max saying: “Right, whatever, sorry I can’t keep track of all your - no, sorry, that’s -” She raises a hand to her face and lets out a long, slow breath. “I don’t need to be making this worse.”

Billy shakes his head, saying, “Nah, I owe you so many apologies, don’t even worry about it." He says it like a brother long practiced in the art of fighting with his sister. Like they’re actually… siblings. Like they actually... _ care _ about each other. Like… his voice has this kind tone to it that’s…unusual for him. Not that he’s incapable of kindness - he’s not. Robin’s seen it, he’s kind to her and he’s kind to Steve, but… to other people? _ To Max? _That’s certainly new.

But apparently, a lot _ has _ changed since the summer. More than Robin ever could have guessed because Max smiles and it’s the same, like this is something they do all the time - fight and then make up.

“Cool,” Max says. “Still. I’ll try… not to, in the future. You know. I mean, _ I get it.” _

Billy nods and it’s a weirdly nice moment in the middle of all of this chaos, or at least it is until Lucas says, “Wait, d’you mean -” suddenly panicked.

And honestly? Robin’s kind of wondered a few times. Max has that sort of vibe to her sometimes, that fierceness that sits just under her skin, that weariness that Robin’s seen in almost every queer person she’s ever met, that exhaustion that speaks of just waiting for the next bad thing the world is going to lay at your feet and just expect you to accept. 

“No,” Max says, “I like men. And only men. God knows why.”

Billy laughs and Robin finds herself joining in. “Shame,” Robin says. “Women are totally better.” 

“I completely disagree,” Billy says. 

“You would,” Robin snaps back, feeling almost as light as the words sound. Almost, except for then her knee brushes up against Steve's and her brief blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment of happiness is gone, burst by the touch of the living ghost boy sitting next to her. 

“Well, _ I’m _ still _ pissed, _ if anybody cares,” Dustin says, scowling heavily, like a look like that has any place on a face like his. 

“We don’t,” Billy quickly bites out and Max rolls her eyes so hard they almost come unglued and for a second, Robin thinks the moment has passed, or at least that it will, but then something in Dustin _ changes _right in front of her eyes and it’s like watching a storm come to life. 

“Are either of you going to tell us what you did? Or do I have to wait until Steve is dead to hear it?” Dustin snaps, his words containing more bite than Robin’s ever heard coming from him. For the first time in all the time she's known him, he looks a little… dangerous.

“No, really, what did you do?” Dustin ays, inching closer to Billy. “What did you do?” 

At first, Billy recoils at the accusation but then he strikes back with a sneer, having clearly decided to hold his ground because he’s Billy and that’s just what he does when attacked, deserved or not.

Dustin takes another step forward and he’s more than unafraid - he’s furious. He’s practically glowing with it.

“What did you do?” he screams, his voice cracking, twisting into something deeper than it seems to be used to._ “What did you do?” _

He swings at Billy but Billy catches his fist easily and holds it. 

“What I had to do,” Billy says. He drops Dustin’s fist and looks over at Steve with so much love and so much longing all packed into one glance Robin thinks she might actually be sick from just how much pain there is contained in it.

Billy continues on, “and I will continue to do anything I have to do. I will do anything I can. I will do anything humanly possible. _ Because Steve is not going to die. Not again. _Not now and not for a long damn time, not if I have anything to say about it.” 

If asked, Robin would swear she feels the earth stop turning under her feet. “No, no, he_ what?” _

Max pushes her shoulders back again, this time in equal parts determination and resignation. And maybe… also a little regret.

“Steve died before. Originally…” She bites down on her lip and looks at the floor, seemingly to give Billy time to step in and tell the story if he wants to, but he remains passive and silent beside her, so she keeps going. “Originally he was the one that got flayed. He died and Eleven found out about this guy like her with the power to change time. Or timelines. Or whatever. So me, her and Billy tracked down this guy - Vincent Price - or at least that’s the name he uses anyway, and he changed things so that Steve wasn’t dead. But apparently, it didn’t... “ She inhales sharply. “It didn’t work right.”

Dustin blinks. Lucas’ mouth drops open. 

“So we need to call this Vincent Price,” Mike says. “And then Eleven.” 

“Yes, thank you, I said that about twenty minutes ago!” Billy grunts, the words sharp but aimed at no one in particular.

“Okay, but, hold up…” Lucas says, his mouth still hanging open slightly, even after he finishes speaking. “I need to see if I’ve got this right… _ Steve was dead. _ Then you used some guy’s special powers to bring him back to life. Only it was a Steve from a different timeline. And then _ that _ Steve started to remember things from _ this _ timeline…” he pauses again and Robin can see where he’s going. She can see where he’s going and Billy can’t. “What all do you think he’s remembered?”

Robin thinks she knows but she can’t bear to say it out loud. 

Billy still doesn’t get it, so Dustin elaborates.

“Every time he remembers something, it messes him up, right? I caught him passed out in his car once, his nose was all bloody, same as now, only, you know, not nearly this bad. But if he’s like this… if he’s like this… If it’s this bad...” 

Billy’s eyes are locked on Steve. “He probably remembered his own death,” Billy says. “That’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?” 

Robin looks over at Steve, at his blank, numb expression and she wants to shake him. This timeline’s Steve, some other timeline’s Steve, it doesn’t matter. There are no versions of Steve Harrington that aren’t hers. She knows that in any and every timeline possible, he would be one of her best friends. He would be hers. She just knows it. She knows it and she wants to slap him. She’s just… angry and it’s not really directed at him, but also, it kinda is. She kinda wants to slap him for being so dumb. For leaving the night before. 

She wonders if he knew it was happening. If that’s why he left. She knows him well enough to know that in any timeline he tends to shrug other people off when he’s in pain. He’s worse for it than Billy is, he’s even harder to help because Billy at least will get angry in a way she can recognize means he’s just in pain and just needs to be loved harder through it, he’ll get angry in a way that she knows means he needs to be told he’s okay and it’ll all work out, no matter how hard he fights her on it. Billy at least gives her something she can _ do. _ Billy at least gives her something to _ work with. Billy at least gives her an opening._

Steve, though. Steve just won’t say anything. He’ll say he’s fine, but he’ll say it with this smile that always has her believing him. Or worse, he won’t say even that much and he'll just leave, come up with some good, believable excuse to go and she’ll believe him, like an idiot, and… 

She doesn’t know if she wants to slap him or herself. She should never have let him go. And she should never have kept any of this from Billy, either. If she'd told him… if she'd told him…

If she'd told him, maybe they wouldn't even be in this situation right now. Maybe they could've gotten in front of it. Maybe they could have _ done something. _

She doesn’t say any of this. She doesn’t say anything at all. 

_ No one does. _

Dustin looks like he’s about to cry again and it has Mike and Lucas snapping back to attention, moving back to his sides in case he needs them. 

Max looks lost. Looks like she knows… _ something. _ Robin wonders if she’s figured out Billy’s other big secret - his big Neil related secret, though how she ever didn’t know before has always been a mystery Robin could never quite wrap her mind around. There was a lock on the _ outside _ of his bedroom door, for crying out loud. 

And Billy, he just keeps staring at Steve and he walks towards the couch to kneel in front of Steve like a knight before a king and he takes Steve’s hand in his with this aching kind of gentleness, like there’s no one else in the room, no one else in the entire world, just him and Steve and he slowly, so painfully slowly, starts rubbing his thumb over the back of Steve’s hand in a way that seems born of long practice and is almost reverent in nature.

Steve though, he still doesn’t respond, still doesn’t react at all and the pain this brings out in Billy is enough to have Robin biting down on her lip to keep from crying out. 

“You really…” Dustin says, his voice quiet, “You really do love him, don’t you?” 

Billy snorts but he doesn’t break eye contact with Steve. “What do you think?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God, this chapter was hard to write! I must have planned it out six different ways before finally figuring it out. 
> 
> Please leave a comment and tell me what you thought about it!
> 
> [Also, I have a tumblr.](https://gideongrace.tumblr.com/)


	15. Fighting for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's both some overcoming internalized homophobia and some internalized homophobia in this chapter. And some mentions of Neil. And some homophobic language. To do with Neil. 
> 
> Also, here's a playlist [on spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6dVCJauHlrAYIjOaMFBbXi?si=AsAU-iV5Rd-jXuuWnRmQbw) and [on youtube.](https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5F8vfeOWeSOcOzD0LL3om3mB_u2uyxu2) It's full of songs and artists mentioned in the fic.

_Saturday, November 16th, 1985_

The thing about it is, Billy's good with pain. He's walked through broken bones and fought to hide the limp. And he's won. He's sat with blood in his mouth, blood on his lips, blood on his teeth for _hours_ and not flinched, not even _moved, _just took his punishment as calmly and as quietly as was humanly possible and waited for it all to be over.

He's worked through exhaustion; he's used to sitting still, being so perfectly still, so perfectly emotionless as he got yelled at and blamed for shit that had nothing to do with him and he'd taken it all without a single word of complaint in the moment.

He's done _all of that. _

He's good at it. He's _built for it._

Or at least, he used to be.

He used to be able to keep things to himself. He used to be real good at only ever letting out waves of rage or of irritation and aside from that, perfectly displaying the image, the version of himself that he wanted people to see.

He used to be able to sit still and watch as the world fell apart around him, hold the pain close, sit still, wait for it to boil over into a burning rage and then let that rage out later in a place and in a way that wouldn't get him hurt in any sort of way that mattered, in any sort of way he couldn't just later walk off.

But the point remains - he used to be able to sit still when things were going wrong, when things were bad, he was always good at sitting still and taking it. And now he couldn't possibly be still, maybe even if his life depended on it.

And now he can't take it, not at all. He used to be able to withstand - can withstand - a punch to the gut like it's nothing but now -

Oh, now. Now just one look from Robin - just one teary-eyed glance - is enough to send him spinning.

Now he can't stop moving.

Now he can't stop looking over at Steve and wanting to scream, wanting to scream and to cry.

And he's so fucking tired. He's bone-deep, down to the core, might-just-fall-over-in-the-next-two-seconds fucking _tired. _More tired than he's ever been in his whole, entire life.

And he's not normally like this, this isn't really him; he's always got up after every hit, always been ready for more, always kept that fight of his squarely between his teeth and always bit anyone who ever dared to get close enough to try and do anything about it.

But now. Well, now he's this antsy, angsty, spun-up absolute and utter disaster of a thing, now he's this completely different person.

But _then…_

Then, everything he _was,_ well, that was before he had something to care about. Some_one_ to care about and it's like every emotion he'd ever pushed aside, every want, every need he'd ever ignored, all of it started rushing to the forefront the second he met Steve, all of it competing for attention all at the same time and overloading every single stupid, useless, under-equipped sort of system he's ever had.

And he can't take it anymore. Billy knows he doesn't know a lot, like emotionally speaking he knows he reads at about a third grade level and he knows he just can't take this. Not anymore.

They'd called Joyce and Eleven and filled them in on everything about an hour ago. Joyce had said they'd be there in three, which gave them two hours to wait. Two hours to wait and to worry. Two hours to worry and to pace. Two hours to sit or stand around uselessly and watch Steve slip further and further away.

And Billy doesn't know how he's going to manage it because he's already falling apart.

Or maybe he fell apart a long time ago. Maybe he fell apart irrevocably after Steve died and this is just…

This is just…

He doesn't know what this is just.

They've tried calling Vincent Price's number three times now and every time it's been the same - disconnected. He doesn't know why they've tried so many times, either, like suddenly it'd just come back on and he'd answer and he'd… what exactly?

Probably laugh at them? Tell them, "Well, I told you that you might not like what happened," and hang up on them? Might tell them, "Well, that sucks, too bad for you, 'cause there's no fixing this now," and then, "Fuck you, now lose my number." He's pictured any conversation they might have had at least half a dozen times by now and in none of them is that bastard ever any help.

Billy doesn't know why he thought he ever might be. Billy doesn't know why he thought going there was a good idea in the first place and he doesn't know why he went through with it. He doesn't know why he thought he could save Steve. He doesn't even know why he thought he could ever _date_ Steve and have it all turn out in any sort of way even remotely approaching good and he doesn't know why he thought he could ever…

Why he thought he could ever…

Why he thought he could ever be any kind of happy ever at all. Because the truth is, when you get right down to it, he's just a fucked up jackass raised by a fucked up jackass and he should never have tried to be anything other than that.

Because if he hadn't ever tried to be anything else, if he'd stuck to his original plan of "get popular, be untouchable, be safe" everything would have been fine. If he'd stuck to his original plan and not let anyone get too close, then no one would have gotten hurt. If he'd just stuck to his original plan -

"Hey!" Robin calls out and Billy ignores her thinking she's not talking to him until she tacks his name on at the end - "Billy!"

He snaps his head towards her but he doesn't stop moving. He can't.

"You're going to wear a hole into the carpet if you don't knock it off," she says, doing him the disservice of getting to her feet and standing in the way of the path he's been wearing back and forth in front of the couch for the past twenty minutes.

"I-" he starts and immediately stops, his jaw forcibly clicking shut. He's got nothing. His mind is a complete blank and his tongue may as well have vacated his body because there's just nothing left.

"Sit down," Robin says, putting a hand on his shoulder and just enough pressure into her grip that he feels the need to follow where she's pushing him - towards the couch and towards Steve, or what's left of Steve, anyway.

"We'll figure this out," Max says from her spot wrapped around Lucas in the sad, hideously orange chair across the room. "Eleven and Joyce are coming and we'll figure this out."

Billy sinks into the couch cushions and feels his leg brush up against Steve's but he can no longer bear to look at him. He feels his whole body tensing up - he wants to shake Steve, to force him to wake up, but he can't. He won't. He wants to hit something, feels the urge rising in him like a tidal wave, but he can't. He won't. This is the one thing he _can_ control, one wave he_ can_ hold back, so he will. He's going to. He _will._

"We won't let -" Dustin starts, his determination held _just_ close enough to keep his lower lip from wobbling as he looks over at Steve. "We won't let anything happen to Steve. We'll fight this."

Billy lets out a long breath that has Robin looking at him with enough sadness in her eyes it makes him want to curse, but instead of cursing, he says, "I need a smoke," and she comes back with, "Really?" almost before the words have left his mouth.

He just makes a face at her and gives her the universal hand wave for, "Well, yeah!" in the angriest way he can possibly manage, which is pretty fucking destructively angry at this point.

"I…" Mike says, clearly uncertain about whatever it is he's about to say and managing to set Billy's teeth on edge just with that one word and that lingering uncertainty. "I think I have some in my backpack?" he says as he gets up from his perch on the windowsill where he's been sitting, eagerly awaiting the arrival of his girlfriend ever since he'd found out she'd be coming. He's even stared out the window a handful of times, like he's hoping maybe somehow her powers have changed from whatever the hell it is she does to the ability to run fast enough to get here in a third of the time it would take to drive.

Or, in other words, he's doing exactly what Billy himself had been doing earlier this morning - waiting for the person he loves most in the whole world like a dog waits for his master.

And it's probably part of, if not entirely why Billy hates the kid so much - they're too similar in the way they've grabbed onto one person, decided they were everything and absolutely refused to let them go no matter what.

And Billy knows, knows because Robin has told him (after Dustin had told her) that Mike went through the same sort of thing as he did, knows Mike watched the girl he loves disappear into nothing and knows the kid spent almost a year calling out for her over the radio waves, unable to give up hope that she might be out there somewhere.

And she was.

By some miracle of the universe, she was.

But Steve wasn't. He wasn't coming back and Billy forced the universe to bend to his will and now Steve is paying the price for that, for his arrogance.

"Why do you have cigarettes?" Dustin asks, his voice going all pitchy on the word _cigarettes_ like he's _grievously_ _wounded_ just by the mere _thought_ of Mike having them. Like the idea wounds his delicate sensibilities, or whatever. Like his friends should be above such nasty, _filthy_ things as _cigarettes._

"You kept those?" Lucas asks, his nose twisting up in a show of clear displeasure but the kind that only comes from having tried smoking for yourself and having decided that it is, in fact, utterly disgusting.

It's a face Billy knows well from his own first attempt at smoking.

It's always disgusting the first time.

"I mean, yeah. I didn't really know what else to do with them," Mike says as he crosses the room, the words drifting out half like a question and half not.

All of this, of course, only serves to freak Dustin out more, as does Mike reaching into his backpack and pulling out a severely crushed but almost nearly full pack of Newports. "You've _both_ tried smoking cigarettes?" Dustin squeaks.

Lucas shrugs as Mike tosses the pack to Billy. "Yeah, so?" Lucas says, clearly not getting why the curly-haired mega nerd is freaking out so badly.

"It was just the one time," Max adds in helpfully, also totally not getting it.

"Okay, all three of - they're disgusting and can kill you!" Dustin screeches as Billy pulls out a cigarette from the pack and lights it up.

Robin, from her spot still standing in front of the couch, glares down at him.

He inhales and only barely manages to fight off the urge to blow smoke in her face. Instead, he blows it at Dustin because the kid is so annoying even he apparently doesn't really know why he's upset.

"I just-" Dustin says. He waves a hand at Billy before careening his neck wildly between Max, Lucas and Mike. "This is who you wanna be like?"

Max shrugs and says, "It was just one time, man," as Billy finds himself gripping the pack of cigarettes in his hand tight enough to crush them almost completely.

"You're really just achin' for me to punch you in the face, huh?" Billy says to Dustin.

In response, Dustin rolls his eyes like he's tired of Billy's antics and lets out this world-weary sigh that no one his age should even be able to make.

"I really don't care," he says and the funny thing is, Billy can tell that he means it. Of everyone, Dustin would have seemed to be the least likely candidate to grow a spine and learn how to stand up for himself and yet, tonight, he seems to have done just that.

Billy's almost impressed. Almost, but then there's the fact that the kid clearly has no idea that the real reason he's so upset right now isn't that cigarettes are awful and dangerous but that he was left out, so that tampers how impressed Billy is with the kid just a bit.

Still, he drops the issue.

So does everyone else.

\---

By the time Joyce's car finally pulls up outside the apartment building, Billy is almost vibrating out of his skin and he can see that Mike is too, though the emotion on his side vs. Mike's is wildly different - Billy feels like he wants to tear all of his hair out whereas Mike looks like he might just cry from sheer relief.

They all watch in tight-lipped silence as Joyce parks the car and her and Eleven get out.

They watch as the two of them walk into the building and they all wait anxiously for the buzzer to go off, then for Robin to answer it and let them in, then again for Joyce and Eleven to knock on the door.

The whole thing only takes maybe a handful of minutes, five at the most, but Billy feels it like it's an entire lifetime. Like he's waited at least six or seven lifetimes for them to arrive, like it's been six or seven lifetimes just watching all this happen, just waiting for everything to go wrong that one final time and for it finally to be over.

Another entire lifetime passes between when Mike heads for the door and comes back with Joyce and Eleven.

Eleven looks so perfectly calm that Billy wonders what it would take to rattle the girl; she seems unflappable, like nothing could tear her down, like nothing could shock her anymore and he hates that. Hates that anyone as young as she is has that sort of fierceness in them.

He knows a little of fierceness himself and he knows that it never comes from anywhere good, never comes from anything other than trauma and perseverance in the face of sheer, rotten bad luck.

And then there's Joyce. And the second Joyce sees Steve with his blood covered shirt and blood-covered face and his alarmingly pale skin and the dead look in his eyes she makes the sort of noise only mothers seem to be capable of making - it's this noise of pure heartbreak and utter sadness at someone else's misfortune, but instead of saying anything about that, about the scene before her, she just turns to El and says, "Are you sure you want to be here?"

Slowly, El nods and says, "Yes. I am."

Then El turns her head and nods at Billy and there's something that's almost unkind about the look that she gives him, like she's telling him without telling him that this is all his fault, that this all could have been avoided if only he'd just told everybody about what'd happened like she'd told him he should but then she pushes her hair back behind her ear and her expression shifts, leaving him feeling uncertain that any of that had ever been there at all, like maybe it was just a trick of the light.

A trick of the light or his own guilty conscience, one of the two.

Then Joyce takes a step into the room and this time, the whole mood shifts, everyone seeming to realize in the same instant the one thing Joyce doesn't know and the one thing they can't tell her.

Without having to talk about it, Billy inches away from Steve and Robin drifts in closer - it's a trick they've all played many times before but it's never bothered Billy as much as it bothers him now.

Now, against the mother of a kid he barely knows he feels the moronic and yet almost all-encompassing need to claim Steve, to be as close to him as he can, to drape an arm around his shoulder and to look Joyce square in the eye as if to say, "And what are you gonna do about it?"

Probably because there's plenty she _could_ do about it if she found out and decided she doesn't like it. She could take away the one person who might be able to get Steve back and Billy, well, he's never exactly been good with things like that.

He's never really let himself want anything enough to ever really need anything from anyone. But he wants things now. He needs things now. And he has absolutely no idea how to handle that, it's completely foreign territory for him and apparently, his instincts run towards fucking it up on purpose to try and make not getting what he wants, what he needs, hurt less.

Because there's still no promise this will work.

Still, no promise this is doing anything other than bringing in more people to watch Steve die and just like last time he wouldn't be able to - no.

Billy decides suddenly but irrevocably that if this doesn't work, if Eleven can't do anything, if Steve dies tonight and Joyce is here to watch, he doesn't care. If Steve dies he doesn't care what Joyce knows or doesn't know and what her opinions are or aren't and what she can handle or what she can't - he doesn't care.

He's not going to let Steve die a second time without knowing how much he's loved. He's not going to let Steve die a second time without getting to touch him, to hold him, so he shifts back to where he was before, pressed up against Steve and he does what he wanted to do, he throws an arm around Steve's shoulder and he looks over at Eleven, then at Joyce and for once there's no malice in it, no challenge.

He just doesn't care anymore. This is what it is, he is who he is and that's all there is to it.

"So," Mike says, breaking the mounting silence and unintentionally, the tension. "Was… did you… Will's not here?" He falls over his words awkwardly and avoids looking at Eleven as he speaks.

It's… odd.

Like for all he was so ready to see his girl that he seemed to be aching for it, he hasn't really looked her in the eye since she got here and she doesn't seem to be looking at him much, either.

"Um, no," Joyce says, carefully biting down on her lip as she tries not to match Billy's stare with one of her own. "I wanted to keep him and Jonathan out of this if they weren't needed and they're not, so…" She breaks and stares openly at Billy.

He shifts even closer to Steve, pressed up close enough now to feel how warm Steve distinctly_ isn't_ but still he says nothing.

"But they know," Eleven says quietly, looking at Billy in a way that partly makes him want to groan and partly makes him want to apologize because he knows what she's implying by saying that and yeah, she's right. Everyone else is right. He should have said something. He knows that now.

He knew it then, too, he was just too much of a coward at the time to do anything about it.

"Do you…" Lucas asks like the only way anyone knows how to speak anymore is haltingly. He shifts a little under Max's weight and grunts. The two of them have barely moved in Billy doesn't know how long. "Can you…"

"Are your powers back?" Max finishes for him.

Eleven nods. "A little," she says. And that's it. A little. No further explanation. No mention of what it is she's going to try to do. Just. A little.

An awkward silence falls then stretches out, settling and becoming thick enough to choke each and every one of them; there are just too many people in the room for what actually needs to be done and it's obvious nobody wants to admit to that and nobody wants to take charge and just deal with the situation at hand. They all waited for Eleven to come, hoping she would save the day and now that she's here nobody wants to find out if maybe she actually can't.

After yet another entire lifetime, Joyce is the first to break the silence, saying to Eleven, "Okay, but if you don't want to do this, you don't have to. You know that, right? We may have driven all the way up here, but if you're not up for this, if you don't feel like you can, we can leave."

And Billy doesn't know exactly how he feels about this, but it's somewhere between glad that Eleven has someone to back her up, to protect her and mad that this woman could see a person covered in blood, a person that's clearly not okay and decide that it's okay to bail, to leave him here to die.

Because that's what she'd be doing if she dragged Eleven out, she'd be leaving Steve here to die and while it's great she's so devoted to protecting her kid and all, Steve needs that kind of protection, too. Steve's still a kid, too. They all are.

Or at least they were supposed to be.

Billy almost starts to say something to that effect, that Steve is probably outright doomed if they leave but Robin beats him to it.

She looks over at Joyce, her hand tightening on Steve's shoulder as she says, "And what about Steve? What are we supposed to do if you leave?"

The words are sharp on the surface but there's an undercurrent of deep sadness to them, sadness and something almost like despair.

Billy stretches his arm out across Steve's shoulder and places his hand over Robin's before narrowing his eyes at Joyce and for a second, just a second, Joyce looks as terrified as a deer in the headlights.

But then she seems to change shape and to mutate from a hapless deer caught and trapped and powerless into something bigger, something stronger, something with great, big antlers or great, big horns, maybe as she levels the both of them with a piercing look of her own. "Well I'll tell you what we _should_ do - we should be taking that boy to a hospital. We can take him to a hospital and -"

Mike, of all people, cuts her rant short with a loud snort.

"Yeah, 'cause _that'll work,_" Mike says, all that fierceness Billy had seen earlier suddenly rising back to the surface so loudly it almost makes an audible popping sound.

Quietly, Eleven reaches out, grabs Mike's hand and squeezes it. He squeezes back.

"We can call Doctor Owens and he'll know the people to fix this, I know he will," Joyce carries on like she'd never been interrupted. "We shouldn't be trying to fix this ourselves."

Dustin peels himself off from the spot he'd taken up on the wall and takes a deep breath, somehow managing to silence everyone with just that action alone.

"And how long do you think that would take?" He says it slowly, calmly, like this is a simple question in any ordinary conversation, like his cheeks aren't still coated in easily visible tear tracks, like he hasn't been letting out these long, shuddering breaths every time he so much as looks at Steve. "How long do you think he has like this?"

Joyce raises her head and again, Billy pictures something with great, big horns, pictures her brandishing them at Dustin.

"Dustin, sweetie," she says, kindness and light mixed with just a hint of desperation, of trepidation, of fear, as she says, "I know you want to help but every time we've tried it hasn't exactly ended well."

"We don't _want_ to help, we _need_ to help," Max says, just as behind her, Lucas spits out, "So what? That means we should just give up? It's gone bad before so this time we don't even try?"

Joyce turns to face Max and Lucas and it has something in Billy's gut clenching. "I'm not saying give up, I'm saying -"

This time it's Eleven that cuts Joyce off.

"I want to be here," she says, quiet as ever. She dips her head in this way that could almost be called absent-minded, like she's already a thousand miles away from here, like she's already in Steve's head, doing whatever the hell it is she does.

Billy doesn't know. Maybe she is.

"I want to help," she says. She drops Mike's hand and squares her shoulders. "I _can_ help."

She walks across the room and everyone holds their breath, a wave of tension rising amongst all of them with every step she takes.

"Okay," Joyce says, her resolve breaking only the tiniest fraction. "Well - okay."

She stands back but she looks like she's ready to jump in the second things go wrong and again, Billy can't help but be a little glad Eleven has someone so ready and so willing to protect her, even if it puts someone he loves at risk.

Billy's eyes wander around the room before landing on Mike and he can't help but notice the way Mike's hands dive deep into the pockets of his nearly spotless jeans and bunch up into fists as El goes to sit on the edge of the coffee table.

Mike looks like he wants to stop this but, at the same time, he's not saying anything, like he knows he shouldn't be _trying_ to stop this, like he knows he_ can't_.

Max catches Billy looking at Mike and her eyes bounce a couple of times between him and Mike and El but she doesn't say anything either, doesn't even give Billy a look that particularly seems to mean anything.

The way Lucas is gripping tight to her hips says he's just glad it isn't him, glad all of this has nothing to do with the person he cares the most about and for a second, Billy is envious of that. For a second, he wishes he could be on the periphery of all of this the way Lucas is, rather than caught right at the center.

"What are you gonna…" Dustin asks as Eleven pulls a blindfold out of her jacket pocket. "Do?" he finishes awkwardly, like he's just as shocked and as weirded out by all of this as Billy is, as Robin is with the way her eyes have gone all huge, even though Dustin must have seen Eleven pull this particular trick whatever it is at least once by now so it really shouldn't be so shocking to him.

Eleven breathes in deeply and narrows her focus to Steve.

"I'm going to try to find him," she says, like it's just that simple, like it's something she can just _do._

But then, maybe it is. Maybe she can. The look on her face says she believes that she can, at least, and that has to count for something.

She takes another deep breath, lifts the bandana to her face and ties it before reaching out for Steve's hand but before she has the chance to fumble for it, to have to search very much at all, Robin leans forward and reaches out to guide her hand so it's resting on top of Steve's.

Robin doesn't lean back afterward, either. She just sits upright, hovering. Waiting. It makes Billy even more nervous than he already was. He knows how important to Robin Steve is, too, knows the stakes are just as high for her as they are for him.

Eleven nods a silent thank you in Robin's general direction before going still and again, everybody in the room holds their breath as they wait for her to do her thing.

Nothing happens. For almost a solid minute, nothing happens, then she holds out her other hand and at first, Billy isn't sure for what but then she calls out his name and without thinking, he slides forward, arm dropping from around Steve's shoulders to reach out and grab Eleven's hand.

The instant his hand touches hers he's sucked out of the room, out of his body it feels like, and he comes to in this weird, dark place with no walls and no floors, a place where no color seems to exist except for the deepest, darkest shade of black he's ever been unfortunate enough to see.

Instantly his muscles tense up, ready for a fight, but then he feels his hand being squeezed and he looks over to see Eleven standing next to him, holding his hand and something in him settles just a little because he knows that whatever he's going to have to fight in here at least he won't have to do it alone.

They don't have to walk far before they find Steve. He's standing at what Billy would call the center of the room but as the space they're in technically doesn't have any walls or any identifiable edges, there's not really a center. Or an end. Or an anything. It's just black on black on black on every surface, stretching out indefinitely.

It gives Billy the creeps.

But as much as that's true, Steve looks worse; the way Steve looks bothers him more.

Steve, for a split second, looks like he's asleep standing up but then his face morphs and it looks like he's howling in pain only he's not making any noise, he just _looks_ like he's screaming. And screaming. And _screaming._ Black veins flare up underneath his skin and disappear. Flare up and disappear. He goes silent. He screams. He goes silent.

It's like he's fighting with himself.

Or not, Billy realizes, himself. He's fighting the monster. The Mindflayer. It's trying to control him.

And Steve is fighting back because of course he is. He's Steve. So of course he is. God, Billy's never met anybody with more fight in them than Steve has, even if Steve doesn't always seem aware of it himself.

Billy though, he just stands there and watches, unable to move, his breath stuttering in and out of him in short bursts. He wants to reach out, to touch Steve, to… do _something_… but all he can do is stand and stare as Steve wars with the monster that's trying to take him over for the second time.

Then suddenly Eleven's talking, saying, "Talk to him," and the haze Billy's under lifts just enough for him to turn his head and stare at her.

"Talk to him," she says again.

Billy blinks long and slow. "And say what?" He feels like he's trapped under ice. Like everything is frozen over, including his brain.

Eleven sighs. "I don't know. Just. Talk to him."

She points a hand out in a way that has Billy thinking of the grim reaper and he grunts and purses his lips, tries to push back the ice surrounding him, choking him.

He manages it just long enough to say, "Steve? Are you there?"

Steve's face flips again from silent to screaming but other than that, there's no response.

"Steve?" Billy says again, his name this time sounding more like _please,_ more like a prayer to a God Billy knows is most definitely not here right now, a God that almost certainly hates him. Might hate both of them, if this is what he lets happen.

Billy waves a hand in front of Steve's face and again, there's nothing. There's been no response for so long now that Billy's struggling to hold onto the idea that any other version of Steve ever existed. He struggles to remember Steve's smile like maybe he'd only ever dreamed it up in the first place, struggles to remember what Steve looked like happy.

"I…" Billy breathes out. "He…"

He wants to look away, he can't stand to see the sight of Steve screaming any longer, but he's drawn to it like a magnet.

He _can't_ look away.

"Don't give up." El's quiet voice is somehow full of hope, like she really and truly, in all honesty, believes that Billy can talk Steve out of this. Like love can save the day. Like it ever has before. Like love's ever gotten anyone anywhere other than hurt.

"I…" Billy can feel the word come out on a whine. "I don't know what to say."

"Just..." El says, sounding desperate. "Try."

_Just try, huh?_ Billy thinks as he glances over at her and sees this overwhelmingly hopeful look on her face. _Okay._

"Steve," he says and this time it comes out fully sounding like a prayer because it is one. Steve's name is the only prayer he's ever known. "Please. Please come back to me. _Please._"

Steve's veins pulse black violently. Nothing else happens.

"I need you," Billy says.

Steve is silent.

"I need you, please, _come on,_" Billy begs. He pleads. He _cries._ _"Please." _

Eleven squeezes Billy's hand. He squeezes back.

Steve's veins pulse black again and it seems worse this time, like the monster fighting for control of Steve is winning.

Billy gulps. It feels like everything's stopped, like he could hold a hand up to his own chest and feel nothing, no heartbeat, no breath, nothing, like maybe they've both died and this is Hell. A thought slips into his head that he doesn't want to believe but that he's heard more times than he can count - _you know all faggots go to Hell when they die, don't you? That's where you're going when you die, straight to Hell. _The thought even plays itself in a pitch-perfect replica of Neil's voice.

The black veins intensify, branching out and covering more and more of Steve's skin until there's almost more of the black, pulsating mess visible than actual skin and again, without thinking, Billy reaches out and grabs one of Steve's hands with his free one.

The veins seem to shudder and shrink back up Steve's arm at the touch. Billy pushes his hand up a little farther and watches as the veins flee underneath his fingers.

"Maybe…" Eleven says dragging the word out. "Maybe…"

She reaches out with her free hand to grab Steve's other one so they're all connected in a circle and it only takes a second before Billy feels himself being thrown out of his body again.

This time, he lands at the edge of the battle at Starcourt Mall. He watches in horror as he sees Steve get impaled and then watches as suddenly it changes, as suddenly it's not Steve that's being impaled but Billy himself. Then it changes again and this time it's Heather.

There are no big, flashy effects like he'd think there might be for such a trick, just one second, it's Steve standing in the center of the big, massive hall and the next it isn't and each time it looks like nothing's changed, like things were always and only ever exactly what they are in that moment.

Next to him, Eleven squeezes his hand and he squeezes back.

Neither of them says anything as they watch the scene before them play out again and again and _again_ in perfect sequence, the first with Steve being impaled by the Mindflayer, then himself, then Heather.

"Steve!" Billy shouts in the middle of seeing Steve being impaled for the third time but it switches, almost like whatever's doing it knows Billy and El are here.

Billy watches another version of himself be impaled, watches another version of Steve standing on the second floor, leaning over the railing and watching like what's going on is horrifying, but horrifying in a car crash on the side of the road sort of way. Like this is something happening to someone he barely knows, not like this is happening to someone he loves but Billy doesn't have time to think over what that might mean, what any of this might mean, he just shouts Steve's name again and takes a step forward.

He drops Eleven's hand and when he does the scene switches to Heather being impaled.

He takes another step and the scene flips again to Steve being impaled and this time, when Steve screams Billy is right there with him.

The scene freezes just as the third tentacle stabs through and starts to lift Steve's body, leaving him hovering in the air.

Billy steps over the version of Eleven that's frozen on the ground with a look of pure terror on her face, pure terror but also pure determination and he climbs up and over the tentacles to reach Steve. He looks at Steve's face, at the pain etched all over it and he can't take it. He can't take any of this. He needs Steve back. He needs Steve like he needs to breathe and he can't fucking take it anymore. So he kisses him.

It's not a good kiss - Steve is frozen and can't kiss him back - but Billy puts everything he's got into it, puts all the love and all the devotion and all of his own fierceness, his own determination, his own fire into the kiss. Because he needs Steve to know that he's loved, he needs Steve to know that he's needed, that he matters.

He leans in and tries to ignore the slimy, disgusting, wet sound the tentacles make and the firm but somehow also mushy and slippery feeling of them underneath his hands.

Instead, he focuses on the feel of Steve's lips under his own, remembers every other time he's kissed Steve, remembers the feel of Steve's hair in between his fingers, remembers the way Steve would smile while kissing him, the way he could feel Steve's lips twitching up rather than see it. He remembers the sound of Steve's laugh, joyous and wild. He remembers the feel of Steve's skin under his rough, smoke-edged fingertips, remembers how delicate and soft it is, remembers how Steve's skin would smell of that ridiculous, expensive soap of his right after a shower and remembers how much he prefers the way Steve smells naturally, without any of the stuff he puts on.

He remembers lying in Steve's bed pressed up so close together he could practically feel everything Steve was feeling, remembers lying there for hours, touching each other and kissing until they were breathless and starving but still not being able to stop.

Around them there's a sound like the world splitting in half and then the Mindflayer's roaring and everything collapses in a flash of white-hot heat that feels like it's searing Billy's skin from his bones, and still, through all of this, he doesn't stop kissing Steve. Still, through all of this, he doesn't look away.

He can't.

He closes his eyes, figuring if this is to be his last moment then he wants to remember the good parts, wants to remember that it ended with Steve, that at least it ended for something good, rather than because Neil got too drunk and too angry like he'd always half expected it would. He wants to go out knowing that at least it was on his own terms.

And then he hears Robin yelling, "Oh, thank god!" and he peels his eyes open to find Eleven sitting across from him and Steve sitting pressed up next to him, looking at him with the biggest, dumbest smile he thinks he's ever seen.

Billy doesn't wait, he doesn't say anything, he just leans in and kisses Steve. The kiss tastes stale, tastes like dried blood and Steve's lips are chapped and for that matter so are his but Billy doesn't care. He has Steve back and he just doesn't care. Because this? This is the only thing that matters, the only thing that ever really has.

That they have each other is the only thing that matters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, God, I actually made myself cry with this one.
> 
> Now there's just the last two chapters left to wrap this up!
> 
> And PLEASE leave a comment if you liked this. I really always appreciate it.


	16. Every single version of you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, god. This chapter was so hard to write! The only thing harder than writing ten people in a scene is writing seven of them leaving the room.
> 
> Also, this chapter is a LONG one! And it deals with Steve's trauma from what just happened and heavily features a long, full-out, very detailed ptsd freak out which was exhausting (and cathartic) to write so, consider this a warning for that.

_ Saturday, November 16th, 1985 _

The kiss breaks and in the background somewhere Steve hears a voice he thinks_ might _ be Will's mom, Joyce saying, "Oh. Well. Okay, then," and Steve can tell from the way Billy breathes in that it's like a tripwire's been crossed but Steve keeps his eyes trained on Billy anyway, keeps just breathing in the scent of him and forcefully lingering in the pleasantness of the kiss for just a second longer.

He can tell things are about to go bad, he can, but... that kiss. That's he's here. It's good. It's so good that whatever's going to happen next just doesn't really feel like it matters all that much.

Still, as Billy turns to face whoever it is – and it is, it turns out, actually Joyce - Steve's head snaps around too and he can see the snarl that's present in Billy's features even before he's made a sound. And Joyce is standing right in front of the hallway and right behind her is the door, she could easily just shrug her shoulders or say something cutting, grab Eleven and flee. She could. Steve's seen a few people turn tail and run after Billy's looked at them like that, but instead, Joyce puts her hands up, palms out like she's warning off a scared animal and Eleven shifts towards them from her spot balanced on the edge of the coffee table like she might just jump the gap and come and sit on them both and all of this makes Billy stop dead in his tracks.

He stops and the snarl fades slightly as he sinks back into the couch and back into Steve, but he's no less terrified, no less on edge and that part isn't hard to read, no matter how hard he tries to hide it, tries to present it as righteous indignation or as fury. The _ why _ he's terrified might be a different story, but that he's more afraid than he is angry is obvious to anyone paying attention.

Or it should be, anyway. But then Steve's always thought that. Even before everything, even back when they barely knew each other, that part was never hard to figure out, that Billy's anger is almost always hiding something.

Joyce seems to be thinking on the same lines because next she says, "It's okay, really," with more motherly warmth and affection jam-packed into those three words than Steve thinks he's ever heard from his own mother in his entire life and it leaves him feeling strangely warm and fuzzy, which is not really a feeling he's ever associated with mothers too much before this point but... all the same it's... nice.

It's nice.

“You'll get no judgement from me, I promise,” she says and Steve can tell she means it. She really _ doesn't _ mind. She really _ is _ okay with it. But then that makes a certain sort of sense, considering the things people have said about Will, which, accurate or not, she must have heard. Heard and decided to just love him anyway because that's just the kind of person that she is.

And that's... that's _ nice. _

Billy, however, isn't so trusting. He wraps a tight, possessive arm around Steve's back, just underneath his shoulders, like he's testing out her claim and when she doesn't react in any sort of negative way – no sneer, no look of fear in her eyes, no mean comment – Billy snorts, seemingly having decided that he's going to really, fully let go of whatever fight he was about to start.

He still looks like he's spoiling for one, though. Everything they've been through and he looks more revved up and ready than he ever has. It makes Steve want to shove at his shoulder and tell him to knock it off, but he doesn't. He knows it would do him no good and that Billy's just worried and bad at it.

Steve's arm just starts crawling up from his side to slide around Billy's shoulder, to draw him even closer when Dustin picks himself up off the floor and starts talking.

"Well-" he says, making Steve realize, alarmingly for the first time, that he's just kissed a boy in front of not just Joyce Byers and Eleven but a whole room full of people and that none of them knows he likes boys. And that this is only a few days after having figured that out for himself.

His arm drops uselessly back to his side and Billy definitely _ notices _ him doing it.

“That's-" Dustin tries again but Steve clears his throat before Dustin can say something Steve is too afraid to hear. Dustin shifts his weight from one foot to the other and takes a few steps forward, shins nearly banging into the coffee table as he does so.

Somehow, the words, "Look, Dustin, I-" manage to come out of Steve's mouth before he's cut off by Robin leaning up off the arm of the couch she's basically plastered herself to and saying:

"He knows, Steve. They all know."

And.

That.

Oh.

That's...

How...

There's a moment of dead silence as Steve carefully eyes every single person in the room. None of them seem terribly upset that he kissed a boy except for maybe Dustin and Steve has a sneaking suspicion that that's less a case of it being a _ boy _ that he just kissed and more of a case of it being _ Billy _specifically.

He can practically hear Dustin yelling at him for it already, even as he just stares back with intent. Dustin's also not ever been a hard person to read, not that he's ever tried to hide it.

Still, Steve's sort of surprised that there are so many people here. That they're all here for him, or, in Mike and Lucas' case, he guesses, for Dustin.

Still.

It's…

Having people show up for him is something he's not at all used to.

He opens his mouth to say something but finds his words being swallowed up by the silence.

No one else seems to know what to say either, leaving them all just sitting or standing there, shuffling awkwardly and avoiding all eye contact past a quick glance or two. Max shifts so she's sitting less splayed all over Lucas in the chair in the corner and more upright so she can start tapping her boot-clad foot on the floor. The sound of it, muffled as it might be by the carpet, is deafening.

At first, it all feels a little anticlimactic, all of this having suddenly been resolved in a way that has little to do with him or anything he did himself, but then as the seconds continue to tick by and the silence becomes thicker and thicker it starts to become horrifying as Steve realizes that he has no idea what's really happened outside of his own head. Like it's great that they're all here, but _ why _ are they all here? Who called them? _ Why? What for? _

He looks outside towards the window, certain that should tell him something but all he sees is the parking lot, the lights inside the dusty lamp posts flickering on and off dimly and providing only the tiniest pools of light directly beneath them, leaving most of the parked cars and the street stretching out behind the lot in near complete darkness.

But...

It was late when he left, wasn't it? But then... how is... how is the sky still this dark? Wouldn't it...

He realizes he has no idea at all how long all this took. But... he sucks in a breath as things start coming together in his head. If Joyce and Eleven are here, and he knows they live out of town now... like three hours away, then...

What day is it? How long has it been?

Oh, god. He doesn't even know what day it is. He knows he was out of it, but he has no idea for how long or what happened during that time.

And he can feel everyone else's eyes trying to avoid him as the silence continues its sickening crawl and he scrunches up his nose like he's trying to avoid yawning or sneezing, even though what he's really trying to do is avoid making a face of absolute horror and that's when he notices it – his face feels weird, like there's something dried and caked on it.

He raises a hand to his nose as if to scratch it and freezes as it comes away covered in something dark red and crusty. Dried blood. There's dried blood on his face.

There's dried blood on his face and he doesn't know what day it is or why everyone is here.

The earlier euphoria he'd felt at being rescued and then at kissing Billy is suddenly miles away and in its place is a sense of creeping dread that's seeping deep into his bones and making him want to shut his eyes and never open them again.

But then finally, finally, Billy speaks up. "While you were…" he trails off and the grip of the arm around Steve loosens like Billy is preparing to let him go.

"While you were knocked out it came out. I'm sorry." It takes Steve a beat to figure what Billy even means by “it”, he's so lost and so spun out by all his recent revelations but then Billy sighs and ducks his head and Steve figures it out. He means the not-straight thing. He means that everybody knew _ before _ they kissed.

Billy starts slowly moving away, again like he's preparing for Steve to run or maybe...

Steve looks over at him, about to tell him it's okay, whatever happened doesn't matter so long as they're together but then he sees the look on Billy's face and he realizes… maybe they're _not_ together. 

Because Billy looks... upset. A little disgusted, maybe. Like maybe he's just had his own startling realization, maybe he's just figured out what Steve's been afraid of him knowing for a while now: that he's not really Billy's Steve at all. 

And maybe that look means that Billy's realizing he did all of this for the wrong guy, that this version of Steve isn't really the boy he loves and... well... if the whole queer thing came out earlier, then it's likely other things came out too, so, maybe Billy knows. Maybe he knows about that now. 

He looks like he knows, he looks like he's realizing something really, _ really _ bad so whatever it is, whether it's what Steve fears or it isn't, he lets Billy shift himself down the couch towards Robin and with that, that one singular action, something in the room changes. It's almost a little like the way the sky smells just a little bit different _ just _ before it rains. It's this tiny, little difference, this tiny, should be insignificant thing, but suddenly everybody in the room just _ knows _ things are _ different _now.

Suddenly, everybody in the room just_ knows _ something is about to _ happen. _

"I think -" Mike says just a little too loudly, his hands flying up and then back hard enough to hit the wall behind him with a 'thunk', his voice almost cracking with his clear desire to get his words out. "I think maybe the rest of us should go? Like I, for one, have had enough of being involved in conversations that clearly have nothing to do with me."

Any other day Steve would appreciate this directness, the complete and utter lack of... well, bullshit is an awfully fitting term for it, but this isn't any other day. This is a really _ bad _ day, a dark skies and thunder clouds kind of day and right now what Mike said is making him feel like he's being shown to the end of the pier, the end of the... whatever it's called they make pirates jump off of the ship from in those stupid pirate movies Robin has made him watch. Like he's being told to walk to the edge of something and jump off.

And the way Lucas nods along eagerly with everything Mike just said really doesn't help matters any. Neither does the subtle look the two give each other, like they're sharing some private joke that Steve's probably never going to understand.

But whatever it is, whatever it means, Max scowls and punches Lucas in the arm for it anyway before sighing with a heavy roll of her eyes; this then makes Eleven twist around so she and Max can share a look which Steve can guess from the way Max's face goes tight expresses something along the lines of: "Ugh, boys."

"You know, that's probably a good idea," Joyce adds in quickly, making Steve feel even worse, making him feel less like he's being led off to jump into a storm darkened sea and more like he's already drowning.

And Dustin? Dustin looks like he knows, like he can tell. Like he wants to offer Steve a life preserver or something, anything. But he doesn't. Instead, he just stands there and re-directs his gaze towards his dusty, beat up, old green sneakers.

Then Joyce looks at the three of them on the couch and smiles kindly, almost like there's nothing weird going on at all, almost like maybe she hasn't even really noticed and really is just concerned for the kids. Almost.

But not quite. 

"I think I'll take the kids out for dinner then drop them off at home, let you guys rest and recover a bit, then I'll come back and check on you," she says, pausing for exactly the right amount of time before adding, "unless you need me for anything right now?" And God bless her, she looks like she'd actually stay if asked. And without complaint, too.

If this is what real mothers are like, Steve is seriously upset. It had never really occurred to him before, that parents are supposed to care like this. He'd never really thought that much about it until today. And this isn't even that big a thing, it's simple. It's so simple. I'll come check on you later. Christ. They're not even her kids. But parents should...

They should...

They should...

Not be all the way in Chicago doing god knows what right now. They should care more about their _ own freaking child _ than a woman Steve barely knows does.

They should... they should _ be here. _ There are all these people here, they all came running and of every single phone call that must have been made to make that happen, no one thought to call his parents.

Or maybe they did and they just couldn't be bothered to actually show up. Both options are just as likely and both are equally just as depressing.

But then that's just one more thing to add to the pile of ridiculous issues in his life that Steve has no idea how to deal with and wasn't even really aware of less than a week ago.

God. It's fucked. Everything is _ so fucked._

Robin leans forward, arms on her knees and looks past Billy over at Steve and Steve nods back, pretends he can't feel the seawater rising in his lungs, pretends he doesn't feel himself choking, pretends that he's totally fine, same as always.

"No," Robin says, "I think we're good."

Billy nods in agreement but doesn't speak and Eleven gives them all a look like she doesn't believe that, not in the least. Like maybe mind reading is part of her skillset now or something and she can _ tell. _ And who knows? Maybe it is. Stranger things have certainly happened, especially lately.

"Yeah," Steve adds, making his voice sound as smooth and as unbothered as he possibly can. He even adds in a stretch and a yawn just to make his point extra clear – there's no trouble here, it's just been a long day and we're all just really tired. That's all it is. It's probably best they go anyway, probably best they leave him to face his doom without any onlookers. "We're good."

"Okay, then I'll go take the kids and come back and check on you all later," Joyce says, again managing to do more mothering in five seconds than Steve thinks his own mother has ever done _ ever. _

"But-" Dustin tries to object but Joyce is right there, momming him out of it.

"They said they're good and you can always come back tomorrow, sweetie. Besides, I'm sure your mother would rather have you fed and home rather than out all hours of the night as well as the day."

Steve swallows and dips his head towards his knees as Joyce says this, unable to hide the look of sheer panic that crosses his face this time. He still has no idea what day it even is.

"Ugh._ Fine,_" Dustin says, pouting and Steve can't help but look up, can't help but look up and notice that Dustin looks like he's been crying. It makes him feel even worse. One of his best friends was crying and worse, crying over _ him. _ It makes him wish they weren't in land-locked Indiana and instead were somewhere where he could actually, really go and drown himself in the ocean.

"But we're so talking later," Dustin says, continuing on. He even does this goofy little pointing thing between himself and Steve like he thinks there's any doubt who he means. Or what it is he's going to want to talk about.

"Yes, yes, now, come on," Joyce says softly as she takes a few steps forward to reach out to Dustin before she's actively herding him into the hallway. This seems to be the moment, the cue everyone else was waiting for as everyone in the room not currently sitting on the couch seems to slump forward just a little, seems to let out a breath almost all at the same time, like this is it, it's over, they can go now. Their part in this is finally, officially, through.

Still though, even with that, they all hover awkwardly for a moment, no one seeming to be entirely sure who should move next. Who gets to be the next to leave.

Mike, the most clearly impatient of all of them, is the first to go, stepping out and away from the wall with a quick nod of his head. He doesn't even say anything, just turns and walks away.

Eleven's head turns to watch him as he goes before she turns back to look at Steve and Billy.

"I'm glad you're alright, Steve," she says and the words come out all soft and delicate, but the look in her eyes speaks to something else, something harder. Eleven, unlike Billy and unlike Dustin, is really hard to read. Steve doesn't know her well, doesn't have a bunch of experiences and memories to draw from with her, but he gets the feeling that it wouldn't really matter, even if he did know her really well. There's just something about her. Something... guarded isn't quite the right word, because that's not it. She's never anything but open, but she's just... there's just something about her.

She takes a deep breath and shifts slightly towards Billy, her eyes narrowing just before she says, "And you, you better call me later," like they talk all the time already, like they're friends.

Steve risks looking over at Billy and is surprised to find him grinning and blushing.

"Yeah, yeah," Billy says, all softness and pure affection. It's a weird look on him. But not a bad one. “I will.”

The tension in him drops for a split second, his whole body going loose before he seems to remember it and the walls all come racing back up, thicker and stronger than ever. Steve can almost see them, like the walls of an old castle, gray and stony with no doors and no windows, no ways in. 

Across the room, Lucas groans and starts pushing at Max to get her to move. She does, but she does it as slowly as she possibly can seemingly just to annoy him.

Once she's finally to her feet Lucas makes a quick dash for the door leaving Max and El the last two kids in the room. Max smiles at Steve, Billy and Robin brightly and shakes her head like she can't believe what's happened. She can't believe they've won.

"I'm glad you're back," she says to Steve. She nods at Billy. "He was an insufferable ass without you."

From the hall they hear Dustin yell out, "He's an insufferable ass anyway!" and Joyce immediately replies with, _ "Dustin!" _

"_Well, _ you've met him!" Dustin fires back.

"Be_ nice, _ Dustin," Joyce admonishes.

Dustin grumbles.

Max still can't stop smiling. She offers a hand up to El and helps her to her feet. "See you at the house later?" she says to Billy. Steve can't help but notice she calls it 'the house' and not 'home', which is... _ interesting. _

Billy makes a noise like he's thinking and something in Steve goes cold.

"I might not make it back tonight,” Billy says, still not looking at Steve. He hasn't looked at him once since pulling away earlier and Steve hesitates to think about what that might mean. About just how much Billy might have to say. About what's going to happen and how long it's going to take. What else Billy might be planning on doing tonight if he isn't planning on going back to his house at all.

Max nods. "Okay. Later, then."

And with that, they leave. The kids all pile out the door one after another after another until soon enough the apartment is quiet, leaving Steve alone with Robin and Billy to face whatever conversation it is that they're about to have. 

Steve tries his best to prepare himself for it, to bring up the walls he's always been terrible at even pretending to have and to be ready for whatever it is Billy's about to say.

Surprisingly, however, it's Robin who speaks up first.

"When was the last time either of you ate something?" she asks as she gets to her feet and stretches her arms above her head, eyeing up the kitchen like even she wants out of whatever's about to happen next.

But Steve doesn't answer and neither does Billy. Neither of them moves, either, they both just sit there as still and as silent as statues.

"Uh, guys?" she asks.

"Oh, uh…" Steve tries to think. "Yesterday?" He really isn't sure. He feels like he can't even remember what food tastes like at this point, honestly and he's not sure he'd be able to taste anything anyway, even if she put food in front of him in the next ten seconds. He isn't even sure he'd be able to eat it at all with how nervous he is.

“This morning, maybe?” Billy says, sounding just as uncertain.

"Okay," Robin says, calm but insistent and definitely like she's gearing herself up for something. "Then I'm definitely cooking us all some dinner."

She gives Steve a thorough once over and makes a face.

"And you're _ definitely _ taking a shower. I have some of Billy's clothes in my room, you can borrow them to change out of…" She looks Steve up and down again. "That."

She points at his shirt and he looks down to see it has blood splattered all over it. He tries not to panic but still, he doesn't move. He doesn't want to move. Everything feels too precarious for him to move.

"You can go shower," Billy says. "I'll be waiting for you in Robin's room once you're all done, okay?"

Still, he doesn't look at Steve, instead choosing to just... look down at his own hands like they're the most fascinating thing in the whole world right now. He doesn't move to touch Steve, either. He's not even sitting fully on the opposite side of the couch but it feels like he's at the opposite end of the _ world. _ Like he's just completely and utterly unreachable. 

So Steve doesn't even try. He just nods and with the most mechanical of movements, he gets to his feet and makes his way down the hall towards Robin's bedroom with its posters of bands Steve's never heard of and all of its brightly colored, hand-painted furniture.

Without thinking he reaches out for the paint splattered, little brass handle of the top drawer of her dresser and pulls on it. The drawer is full of Billy's clothes and Steve's shoulders slump the second his fingers make contact with the soft, worn fabric of one of Billy's old white t-shirts as he realizes that he knew where these shirts were not just because Robin had told him they were in here but because he_ knew where they were. _Because he remembers having been in her room dozens and dozens of times. Because he remembers how slowly, subtly Robin's been stealth moving Billy's things into her apartment, giving him a place to go that isn't Neil's house.

But, pushing this thought aside, he focuses on his goal and grabs the t-shirt under his fingers and a pair of jeans as well, considering he has no idea how many days he's been wearing his current pair and these ones should fit well enough. Not properly, but well enough they won't fall off completely.

He shudders a little as he walks down the hall towards the bathroom and he's glad he's alone in the moment, glad he can hear Robin and Billy talking in the kitchen. Glad, for once, to be ignored.

But then the bathroom is _ worse. _

The bathroom, this bathroom, is so startlingly, achingly familiar in a way he knows it wasn't a few days ago. But now he remembers watching Robin cut her hair with kitchen scissors in here. Remembers watching chunks of her hair fall into the cracked, dingy, stained beige sink and fighting not to bite his thumbnail clean off at the sight of it. He remembers patching Billy up with the first aid kit that's under the sink, remembers the way the cool porcelain of the tub felt underneath his fingers as he gripped the edge of it to stop himself from going out and getting his nail bait and destroying Neil's face. He remembers the look on Billy's face that night, remembers the shame in the way his cheeks flushed red.

But the memories don't hit him violently this time, it's not like he's actively reliving them and they don't make him shudder and pass out. They're just like normal memories, just thoughts that shuffle in and then slide out.

Even so, he waits. To pass out. To lose time. To come to with his nose all bloody, not entirely sure of what's just happened or of how much time has passed.

He waits and he wonders if maybe this time, this time, he won't wake up at all. He almost half-expects that to happen, honestly.

He definitely expects _ something _ to happen, at least because he can't entirely believe, now that he's sitting firmly in it, that this is what winning looks like, that this is what winning _ feels _like.

He sits down on Robin's ugly, fluffy pink bathmat to make sure he doesn't fall over and hit his head on something just in case it does happen. But it doesn't. Nothing does.

He waits for a good long time and nothing out of the ordinary happens at all. He listens in close and he can hear Robin chopping vegetables as loudly as you might cut down a tree over in the kitchen and he hears Billy make some comment that he can't quite make out but that he knows must have been something particularly obnoxious as the next thing he hears is something that sounds something like Robin hitting Billy with her little metal spatula like Steve now knows she's done a million times before and it all seems so... it all seems so... achingly _ normal _ that Steve is left with no choice but to shrug, to get to his feet and to shake his head at himself.

He turns the shower on, listens for the creak and the groan he knows the pipes are about to make and grimaces when they do exactly as expected, bursting out with this ear-piercing, nails-on-a-chalkboard level noise that brings goosebumps to every square inch of his body.

And as he waits for the water to heat up he strips his clothes off, chucks them in the corner and stares at himself in the small, square mirror above the sink.

He looks the same as he always has, more exhausted maybe, but the same. He still looks like himself, but... also... not like himself. There's this deep-seated fear looking back at him from behind his own eyes that makes him shudder and makes him feel a little... itchy, almost.

It's unpleasant, whatever it is and he doesn't recognize it. Doesn't recognize the expression he's making.

And he wishes he could say the blood on his face was alarming in that it's there at all, but he's too used to being beat up and/or bloody by this point. It's happened too many times.

No, the only thing alarming about it is that he still doesn't know _ why _ it's there, or maybe just why there was so much this time and that at this point, he's straight up too afraid to ask.

In the shower, he keeps alternating between closing his eyes to avoid watching all the blood flowing down the drain and staring at it to avoid all the thoughts in his head. He can't stop thinking about Billy. Billy who saved him. Billy who pulled away. Billy who clearly has something to say to him and clearly doesn't want to.

He scrubs himself down aggressively and washes his hair twice just to give himself more time to avoid the conversation he knows he's going to have to have with Billy once he's done. 

But, by this point he's fully exhausted with thinking about what Billy might or might not know, what Billy might or might not be thinking or planning to do so he tries to change tracks, to switch subjects, to think about something else, anything else, but it does him no good.

Because everything he was worried about the last time he was awake to _ be _worried is still there and now added to it is that nearly everyone he knows now knows he's some sort of not straight and he's going to have to talk to Dustin (as well as everybody else) about it even though he barely knows anything about it himself, and then on top of that, now he's seen his own death so that's gonna be put into the rotating schedule of his regularly recurring nightmares.

And on top of even that, like all of that wasn't _ quite _ enough, he remembers everything from both timelines now and he doesn't know what he's supposed to _ do _ about _ that, _ either.

He's taken over someone else's life, there's no avoiding it and he feels guilty, he knows that much. But it's not exactly like that's something he can _ change. _ It's not exactly like that's something he can _ do _ anything about. And, if he's being fully honest, it's not exactly like he'd _ want _ to go back, even if he _ could. _ And he knows he's going to have tell Billy about _ all _of this, if he doesn't already know and he knows that if Billy's not already thinking it, there's a pretty good chance that once he finds out that Steve isn't really the boy he loves, Billy'll probably want to leave and then he's going to have to let him go. 

Oh, and then, of course, there's the thing about his mother. And his father. And that he's going to have to come out to them, too, sooner probably rather than later unless he wants to just spend the whole rest of his life in the closet which he very much does _ not. _

The saying “it never rains but it pours” has never been more fitting. Or maybe... maybe... that thing he thought about earlier was more fitting. Like maybe he is drowning.

No, he's _ definitely _drowning.

He swallows but feels it go nowhere. Feels his throat tighten and his heart thump in his chest just over and over and over and _ over _ and he just wants it to _ stop. _

Or. Well. Not. Stop, exactly. Just, you know, go back to it's usual, previous mode of existence, you know, where it wasn't like a loudly banging gong constantly demanding he notice it every single second.

He can't think around it. He can't think around it and he desperately _ needs _ to. But it just keeps going and going and _ going. _He swallows again but again it doesn't help. He still can't breathe.

He doesn't know how long he stands there for, unable to think, to breathe, to move at all, but eventually, the water goes cold and it snaps him back to awareness, to function just enough to shut the water off and to step out of the shower.

With shaking hands he reaches for the clean, bright blue towel hanging on the white plastic rack on the wall.

He dries himself off and puts on Billy's clothes and heads out into the hall to stare dumbly at the wall before picking up his feet and heading towards Robin's room. He can still feel his heart drumming in his chest, it hasn't stopped and it feels like it's not ever going to, like this is just the way things are now, like he's just constantly going to be at this level of panic for the rest of his life. And maybe he will, enough bad stuff has happened to him at this point that it might actually be for the best. Maybe if he's this level of constantly keyed up he'll start to notice things, maybe he can use this to his advantage, maybe he can avoid things like this happening again if he just pays more attention.

Or...

Maybe...

Not.

_ Probably not. _

He doesn't think he could ever have figured out or anticipated that any of _ this _ was going to happen, no matter how alert he'd been or how much attention he'd paid or how hard he'd tried.

Still, it somehow feels like it's all his fault, though. He _ feels _ responsible, whether he truly is or not.

And with that thought, he stumbles into Robin's bedroom to find Billy lying sprawled out on the bed in his socks and his jeans, his shirt discarded on the floor somewhere, probably some time ago.

His head keeps rocking forward and then back, forward and then back, like he's fighting a battle against sleep and almost losing every time but then just barely pulling back to consciousness through sheer, stubborn force of will. And all Steve wants in the whole, entire world in this instant is to lie down right next to Billy, to get cozy and to fall asleep, but instead he clears his throat and Billy's head snaps up.

After he blinks himself fully awake Billy gives Steve this dopey, happy little grin, this adorable little smile that just confuses Steve entirely because this smile, because Billy being all soft and relaxed on the bed at all... it's… it's a completely different feeling from earlier. Like whatever those negative emotions were that he was feeling, he isn't feeling them anymore. Like whatever Billy needed to say, he doesn't anymore. Like everything is fine, like Billy's just fine, but also it feels... also it feels... wrong, feels like a knife being twisted into a wound Steve didn't know he had, except yeah, he did because the wound is his heart and he is a total bleeding heart sap. Especially when it comes to Billy and _ especially today. _ And because much as he wants to just let this go, to just sink into that smile and into the bed and into Billy's arms... he can't.

Whether Billy knows or not, whether Billy's figured it out or not, Steve has to tell him. Steve has to tell him and he's probably going to have to let him go.

"Hey," Billy says, his voice sleep heavy and warm and so damn inviting it makes Steve downright _ ache. _ Billy's still a little fuzzy around all of his usually sharp, usually so carefully guarded edges and it's clear he has just absolutely no idea about what Steve's thinking right now, about the conversation that they're still going to have to have.

Billy nods, his chin dipping towards his chest as he points lazily with his hand towards the bedside table and the plate of now clearly cold food sitting on top of it.

“I brought your dinner in for you. I finished mine already,” he says, still all heavy and warm. His eyelids even droop slightly as he speaks, like he's still just _ so tired _ and _ God, _ Steve thinks, _ this is gonna be so hard. _

But Steve nods in response rather than speak and he sits down on the edge of the bed as close to Billy as he dares before reaching out for the plate, but then not being able to _ quite _ reach it he has to get back up to grab it before sitting back down. It's just rice with pan-fried veggies and canned beans, one of the maybe _ five _dishes Robin knows how to make, but Steve is so hungry it tastes like the most delicious thing he's ever had. Like he could write an epic poem about how well the rice is salted. He could wax poetic about the soft mushiness of the beans. He would look big words up in a dictionary just to properly express how the way the veggies are spiced is… exquisite? That's a big word, isn't it? Exquisite?

Anyway, it helps. The food helps make him feel less... freaked out than he had a minute ago. Sort of. A little. It makes him feel more grounded, at least. Makes him feel anchored, a little, maybe.

"You were in the shower a long time," Billy says as he flops lazily onto his back, making the bed's springs creak in protest. "I almost burst in on you just to make sure you were alright," he says and the words come out all light and playful, like Billy's only joking, like the joke is Billy was maybe going to burst in on him in the shower for other, more fun reasons, but Steve knows it isn't really a joke, not at all. He knows what Billy was afraid of, what Billy thought had happened. Because he'd thought it too. He'd just sat there for a solid minute, several maybe, just waiting for it to happen.

It didn't but it's going to be a very long time before he stops expecting it to and he hates that Billy has that same weight in him now, that same string always being pulled taught enough to choke. 

Carefully, Steve raises his eyes to the pink, daisy shaped clock on the wall. It's 8:04. Shit. He was in the shower for almost an hour.

He looks back down to see Billy watching him carefully but pretending he's not. Steve gulps down the last few bites of his food and puts the plate back on the bedside table before sitting back down in the same spot as before. _ Better get this over with, _ he thinks.

And maybe this'll be the last blow, the last hit, and maybe after this he can just sink into himself and finally recover. But, the way his heart's still pounding, less insistent now but still noticeable, the way his breath's still catching, not enough to choke but enough to notice that something's definitely off tells him that he won't.

"Look, Billy, I-" he starts but stops short. He doesn't know how to start this. He looks away.

"You?" Billy prompts helpfully after a few seconds have dragged themselves along. Steve feels the bed shift, hears the mattress squeak as Billy sits up and moves closer but he keeps his gaze pinned on the Siouxsie and the Banshees poster tacked lazily to the wall just above the bed.

"I…" Steve starts again. He swallows as Billy moves so he's sitting next to him so their legs are brushing up against each other, reminding Steve of watching_ Terminator _ together however long ago it was now, reminds him of how the heat of Billy's leg burned through his jeans then, same as it does now.

"I'm sorry,” Steve says and in the next instant Billy's leg jerks away and Steve can almost feel a blast of pure cold radiating out from him.

"For?" Billy asks. It sounds like he's chewing on a mix of gravel and broken glass and like maybe he's preparing to fire it all at Steve. Shoot him straight through.

"Because I…" Steve chews his bottom lip. Fumbles with the hem of the old t-shirt he's wearing. _ Billy's _ old t-shirt. He fights not to bury his nose in it and sniff. Fights not to bury his face in Billy's neck and _ cry._

"I wish I was who you're looking for. I'm sorry I'm not him. I'm sorry I don't...” He swallows, his mouth dry.

“I'm not... I'm not... I'm not...” He can feel his mind trying to spin out again, trying to explode. Can feel his heart picking up speed and his lungs starting to shake and to shudder with every exhale.

“I... I... I...” Words are so hard. There's this fog in his head and he can only just barely think around it. But he has to try. This is important. He has to get this out.

"I'm from a different timeline and I don't know if you know that, I don't know who knows what, I don't know... I don't know... I don't know... what day it is, I don't know, what happened... I don't know... what you know... but I... but I... but I... have to tell you, I have to tell you, that... that... I'm not him. I wish I was. I love you and I wish I was the boy you love, but I... but I... but I... I need to tell you that. I'm not.”

Next to him, Billy gulps so loudly it feels like it echoes. “Oh...” He swallows again. “Uh...”

Somehow Steve manages to turn his head to look at Billy and he sees that same look from earlier cross Billy's face again but somehow his mixed-up, muddled-up brain picks up what he couldn't before. Billy looks guilty. That's what this is. Billy looks _ guilty. _ “I... Uh...”

Billy flings himself around Steve and presses himself up so close, so tight Steve can feel Billy's heart banging against his own ribs, a slow, heavy thud in response to the jackrabbit rhythm of his own.

“I'm so sorry, Steve,” Billy says, soft as anything, quieter than maybe he's ever been. “I'm so sorry. This is all my fault. I did this. I'm responsible for this. I'm such a selfish bastard, I...” Billy breathes out heavily and he wraps a hand around the back of Steve's neck, fingers curling and twisting in the baby soft hair there.

“You died. I saw you die. I couldn't stop it and I couldn't live without you. I couldn't stand it. I... barely spent a moment...” He inhales loudly and Steve can feel Billy pressing his face into his neck, can feel the wetness hit his skin as Billy starts to cry.

“I barely spent a moment sober after, I couldn't take it. El found me and came up with this plan to...” Billy breathes out, the sound and the words slightly muffled by how close his face is pressed to Steve's neck and by the way Steve's own body just won't stop _ freaking out _ to let him _ listen._

“Bring you back. We... went and we found this guy, he said he could do it, but he said you'd come back different. I didn't ask questions. I didn't care. I didn't...” Billy's fingers twist in his hair again and _ pull. _ He swallows again and Steve feels it against his neck like it's something that's stabbing him.

“I didn't think about what you'd want, about what I'd be taking you from, that maybe I'd be taking you from somewhere else, maybe from _ someone _ else, that I'd be putting you in danger, that I'd be almost losing you again. I'm so sorry.”

For a moment, Billy presses his face, then his whole body, even closer, like he's trying to bury himself in Steve, but then he says, “You were...” and his head tilts so his hair is brushing at Steve's neck and his face is aimed towards Steve's chest. It has the odd side effect of making Steve feel like he's being watched. He tries to breathe normally, tries to get himself to calm down, but instead his heart picks up speed again and this pervasive sense of dread coils around him and tightens until he's nearly choked by it. 

“When you disappeared," Billy says, continuing on like he hasn't noticed any of this, like he's just as trapped in his own thing as Steve is, like he won't be able to focus until he gets all this out.

"When you disappeared, at first I was mad, at first I thought you were just a no-show, but then I found out you were actually missing, I thought the worst had happened. I thought you'd died again. I thought...” If Billy had been clinging to him before, if he'd been trying to bury himself before, now he completely _ collapses, _his body sinking against Steve's and his head dropping onto Steve's chest. 

Steve's whole body goes tight as he realizes Billy must now_ know _ just how panicked he is, because now he must be able to _ hear _ it.

“Steve,” Billy says, “this has been the worst twenty-four hours of my entire life.”

And that's it.

Twenty-four hours.

_ A whole day. _

Steve's been knocked out, been wiped out, been _ gone _ for a whole _ day. _

A whole entire _day_ he just doesn't _remember._ _A whole entire day_ where he has just no idea what _happened._

That's it. It's too much. It's too much. His brain full-on upends itself like a jar full of spilled marbles, every thought he might have, every single thing he might say, all of it flies apart. His breathing becomes ragged and his heart charges out of control. He can't do anything to stop it.

“Steve, I'm so sorry,” Billy says again. “Please...” He draws himself back and his face is a mess, red and blotchy with wide wet streaks around his eyes and down his cheeks. “Tell me... I know it's not okay, but... Say something. Please.”

Steve can't. He can't. All he can do is stare blankly at Billy, all he can do is watch as Billy's face goes pale, watch as he says, “Steve?” nervous in a way that for once isn't being papered over with rage or with sarcasm and still, Steve doesn't say anything, doesn't so much as blink. The blood rushing in his ears almost drowns out the way Billy screams for Robin. 

His eyes never leave Steve's face.

“Steve,” he says, tone deep and dark and desperate. Steve can feel Billy's hands shaking as he puts them on his shoulders.

“Steve,_ please, _ please don't do this to me again, please, please, I'm begging you, _ please, _don't.” Billy's hands tighten their grip just enough to be painful.

“Come back to me, come back to me, please.” He looks over to the doorway and again screams, “Robin!”

There's the _ thud-thud-thud _ of socked feet crashing over the carpet in the hall and then Robin's crashing into the doorframe and stumbling towards them. Steve watches her sit down half on the floor just in front of the bed, just in front of him, bending awkwardly so she's sitting propped up on her knees.

“Billy!” she barks as her eyes search Steve's face. “What happened?” With a soft and careful hand, she turns Steve's face so he's facing her and he can't do anything but let her.

Beside him, Billy shudders. “I don't...” His words come out sounding watery, like he's crying again. Or still, Steve isn't sure. “I told him what happened and it... I think it's got him again. We're going to have to call Joyce and Eleven back, we-”

“Wait.” Robin snaps. “Hold up.”

She holds up a hand and waves it in front of Steve's eyes. He follows it. She grabs his hand and squeezes and he finds himself somehow able to squeeze back.

“Okay.” She breathes out slow. “He's... I forget what it's called, but my mom got like this a few times after... after...”

She shakes her head and doesn't finish. “He's not gone, just really freaking out.” She gets to her feet. “Help me get him lying down on the bed.”

Next to him, Billy gets up. “I think I'll just...” He takes a step towards the door. “Leave. I'm the one who broke him. I should-”

“Don't you _ dare, _ Billy Hargrove,” Robin spits. She turns to face him. “You didn't cause this. You aren't responsible. You love him, I know you do, so help me get him onto the bed.”

Wordlessly, Billy nods and Steve is left to watch helplessly as they move him so he's lying in the middle of the bed.

“Now,” Robin says, fully in her I'm-in-charge-'cause-I'm-the-smartest mode. “Steve.”

She kneels down next to him, grabs his hand and squeezes it again. He squeezes back almost on instinct. “Good. Okay, now, squeeze my hand if you want us to stay.”

He squeezes her hand. He feels like he's going to throw up. Like the room is flying apart. But he squeezes her hand.

“Good.” She smiles. “Squeeze my hand if you want us to lay down with you and hold you.” Her whole face goes sharp. “Be honest, Steve.”

He pauses for a second but ultimately he squeezes her hand. She smiles and breathes in, then breathes out slow.

“Good,” she says. Carefully, with more delicacy than he's ever seen her use, she brushes his hair back behind his ear.

“Billy,” she calls out as she lies down in front of Steve, her face close to his own and she presses up against him, hugs him tight. “You lay down on his other side and hold him close.”

Billy says nothing but he must agree because a second later, Steve can feel Billy pressed up against his back, can feel Billy breathing deeply and slowly and so evenly it's almost like he's forcing it. It forces Steve's own body to breathe a little slower, too.

Robin strokes his hair gently, fingers running through it and through it and through it.

“What-” She licks her lips. “What were you guys talking about before this happened?” Somehow, Steve knows she's talking to Billy.

“I was apologizing. I was telling him about what happened, I said it'd been the worst twenty-four hours of my life and he didn't say anything so I pulled back and that's when I noticed he was like this,” Billy says and as soon as he finishes, Robin's mouth drops open in a soft, unspoken, “Oh.”

From behind him, Billy impatiently barks out, “Robin?”

Robin sighs. “I think... I think...”

She closes her eyes for a second and when she opens them again it looks like she's formulated a plan. “How much about what happened did you tell him? What did he say? What did he seem stuck on?”

“I don't...” Behind him, Steve can feel Billy twitching, fighting against his need to _ fight something. To fix this. _

“I don't know. He said something before that about not knowing what day it was? He kept repeating himself and getting hung up on things. It was… really weird."

Robin takes another deep breath and wraps her free hand up in Steve's.

“Steve,” she says, all quiet determination. “Would it help if we told you what happened since yesterday? If we told you about the things you don't remember? Squeeze my hand if it would help if we told you what happened."

Steve pauses for a moment, feels his breath catch in his throat again before Billy's arms tighten around him and he relaxes a little. He nods and squeezes Robin's hand. Yes. He needs to know.

“Okay,” Robin says. “So after we stupidly let you leave after the movie, you disappeared. The next morning, Billy and Max went out looking for you while me and Dustin got everybody else here. Billy and Max found you in the ruins of the old Mall and brought you back. Then we called Joyce and Eleven and Eleven and Billy went into your mind and dragged you out.”

“We found you in there fighting against another version of yourself,” Billy continues. “Only it wasn't really you. It was like some monstrous version of you, some horrible thing. Then we got sucked into this other place and I watched as...”

Billy gulps and presses his face into the back of Steve's neck before starting again in a much quieter voice. “I watched as that monster, the Mindflayer ripped you apart, then somehow things changed so it was me that was being torn apart, then Heather, that girl I worked with at the pool, then back to you, then me, then her. I managed to break through it by... well, by kissing you, actually.”

Steve watches as something seems to settle over Robin, a sort of understanding, maybe. Like maybe she didn't know about this part of the story before now, either. He barely remembers any of it himself. He remembers pain, he remembers screaming and he remembers a kiss, but that's about it.

Robin's hand moves on his face and slowly she reaches back up and starts running her hand through his hair again.

Behind him, Billy grunts and starts running a hand up and down his side and eventually, it could be after a few minutes or they might have both sat there carefully touching him, holding him, loving him for hours, Steve has no idea, but eventually, he calms down. Eventually his body stops freaking out and finally, _ finally, _ he finds himself able to take a real, deep, proper breath.

Finally, he feels up to speaking.

“I...” he starts. He still has to tell them. They still need to _ know. _ Both of them need to _ know. _ To _ get it. _“I'm glad you're both here and I'm glad you've been doing all this for me but it feels... wrong.”

Both Robin and Billy seem to freeze up when he says this. Robin drops her hand from his hair and Billy's arms go loose around him like they had earlier, like he's preparing to let Steve go again so he rushes to continue, to explain himself. “You've done all this for the wrong guy. I'm not really your Steve. I'm from a different timeline and I don't think either of you really gets it. I'm not who you think I am. I'm not your Steve."

“Okay, you sort of said that earlier and I don't get it,” Billy says, drawing himself back from Steve just enough to not be talking in his ear. “What on this or any other Earth could possibly possess you to think something like that? Why? What, you think I only love you because of some memories we shared? Do you think that if you got into a car accident and got amnesia like on some bad tv show that I'd suddenly just stop loving you because... because you didn't remember me anymore? Do you really think it'd be that easy? That I'd give up on you like that? What about anything I've said, anything I've _ done _ makes you think I'd ever give up on any version of you ever at all?”

At first, Billy had started out quiet, but by the time he's done, Billy's yelling. He's so upset, he's shaking with it. Steve can feel him practically vibrating behind him, can feel him fighting the urge to _ explode _ with his anger. And this time there's nothing behind it. Billy is just _ angry. _ And he's _ angry _ at _ him. _

But before Steve even has a chance to respond, before he even really has a chance to think about it too much, Robin laughs.

“And for the record, I love you, too, Dingus,” she says. “I don't care which version of you I've got, which timeline or what place you're from, you're mine and I'm not about to ever let you go, you got that?"

She smiles and it's this big, bright, heartfelt sort of thing, the sort of thing that warms Steve up from the inside out. She shakes her head and pulls him in closer to her so their foreheads bump together. 

"Idiot," she says, so close he can feel her breath on his face.

“Okay,” he says. And that's really all there is to say. This also feels a little anticlimactic, that he's been worrying about this for weeks, that he was so freaked out about it earlier, even just seconds ago and now… now all he's got is _ "okay". _ It's ridiculous, that ultimately all it took to fix was a few words, but... that's what it comes down to.

"Okay," he says again.

Robin laughs, the sound even louder from this close up and she lets him go just enough to shove at his shoulder.

Billy grunts again and snarls, “_Okay? _ What? _ That's it?” _He snarls but he draws Steve closer, arms going tight, like a solid wall of muscle holding Steve in, holding Steve together.

This time, Steve laughs. “I love you guys, too,” he says.

“Yeah, you better,” Billy says, confidence fully restored and with it, so is the balance of the universe. With it, with Billy's breath heavy on the back of his neck, Billy's nose only just barely edging into his hair, Steve feels stable again, feels himself able to breathe in and breathe out like it's nothing, like it's normal.

"I rewrote the whole world for you, you better,” Billy mutters, his breath tickling Steve's skin and making him burst out in goosebumps and in laughter. 

“I do. I love you. So much,” Steve says as carefully he pulls an arm out from between himself and Robin to comb his fingers through Billy's curls.

“Awww,” Robin says, tone entirely teasing. “My dumbasses are in love, I love it.”

“Oh, shut up, Rob,” Billy throws back, just as teasing. “You're just _ jealous.” _

Robin tilts her head exaggeratedly even though Steve's pretty sure Billy can't see her doing it, even though that's clearly who she's doing it for.

“Nah,” she says. “I think I'm good.” She smiles and presses her forehead up against Steve's again and closes her eyes. “I'm good right here.”

Steve falls asleep sometime after that, surrounded by two of the people he loves most in the world, feeling their bodies pressed up close against his own and feeling, maybe for the first time ever, really and truly loved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, my god. This chapter took me forever to do! There were so many threads to keep track of! But I'm really happy with how it turned out, even though the ending wasn't at all what I originally had planned.
> 
> And again, please leave a comment and tell me what you thought of it! I worked really, really hard on this and I love to know what people are thinking as they read the story.
> 
> And if you've been following the story, for however long you've been following it, if you've left ten comments or only left one, thank you.
> 
> It really does mean the world to me.


	17. You're all that I want, all that I need

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uhhh… this was supposed to be a purely fluffy chapter but… it also has Billy having some trauma-related panic. And there's some mentions/thoughts about abuse.
> 
> (The last chapter, the epilogue, is sweeter, I promise, I swear. :))

_ Sunday, November 17th, 1985 _

  
  


When Billy comes to the next morning the world is hazy and the first thing he feels is panic. He breathes in sharp and he knows he has to move, has to move but he can't, he's trapped, he's trapped by this weight - and - 

He lets out a breath as his fingers skate along smooth, warm skin, as he opens his eyes to find the weight he's trapped under is Steve's body and in that instant, Billy's whole body relaxes, shakes off the tension and he sighs and he smiles as his fingers slide up and down Steve's back. He breathes in deep and presses his face to the side of Steve's neck, he breathes out and he runs a hand down to Steve's chest and revels in feeling Steve's heart beating strong and slow. 

Because Steve is alive. Steve is alive and he's _ here _ and he's _ his. _

And they're lying in bed together and he gets to touch Steve as much as he wants. 

And it's... it's... 

It's perfect.

Or almost perfect. Kissing Steve would be better, touching him _more_ would be better. 

But...

He looks over to the other side of the bed and finds Robin isn't there and the door is closed. He smiles again as behind the door he can hear the sounds of her puttering away in the kitchen, hears the sink turn on and hears her humming to herself. With a noise that sounds utterly delighted even to his own ears, he turns his full attention back to the beautiful boy laying sprawled out on top of him. 

He runs the hand not on Steve's chest slowly up and down his back, then up his neck and into his hair and Billy shivers, a wave of pure joy flowing out and covering him like a blanket. He's never enjoyed anything more than he's enjoying touching Steve in this moment - not smoking, not fighting, not drinking, not even sex comes anywhere close to how happy this moment is making him.

Then underneath his hand Steve's heart gives a kick and Steve groans and Billy freezes, panic worming its way back to the surface and shattering the protection, the peace the previous moment's happiness had given him. But then Steve is pushing himself to his elbows and smiling down at Billy and - it's good. Everything is _ good. _Everything is _perfect._

"Morning," Billy mumbles, his hand skating up from Steve's chest to cup his jaw. 

Steve turns his face towards the touch and blushes, blushes a deep and fiery red before he frowns slightly and says, "Mmm, morning breath, I should -" 

Billy drifts up and kisses him before he has a chance to finish. 

"I don't fucking care," Billy says as they break apart. He wraps his other hand around Steve's neck and draws him down into another, longer kiss and Steve melts into it, body going all soft and pliant under Billy's careful, gentle touches.

Billy's toes have gone all numb and tingly with how long Steve's been on top of him, but he doesn't care about that, either. 

He moans into the kiss as he drags the hand on Steve's neck back down to his chest, resting it just over his heart again, again reveling in the feel of it. Reveling in the way it speeds up, tripping over itself as the kiss continues, becomes something _ more. _

Steve moans breathlessly against Billy and pushes him deeper into the mattress; Billy sighs in response, his every nerve ending singing, all singing for Steve, _ to _ Steve. Everything in his short, brutal, reckless life has been leading to this moment, to this boy, to -

Steve's hands grip his shoulders then trail down, leaving burning echoes as they ghost over his sides. His fingers slip into the waistband of the jeans Billy had forgotten he'd fallen asleep in and they glide forward, forward, forward, Steve's fingernails scratching against the soft, warm skin there. 

Steve breaks the kiss and lifts himself up _ just _ enough to fumble with the button on Billy's jeans but, not quite able to hold himself up _ and _ undo the button he collapses back on top of Billy and they both crash land into a fit of giggles. 

"Here, let me-" Billy says, pushing at Steve's shoulder, asking him to move. Steve does and Billy regrets it the second the cold air of the bedroom hits his skin but he makes quick work of shedding his pants anyway, just as Steve makes quick work of shedding his own clothes and soon Billy has Steve's pleasantly heavy weight pressing him into the mattress once again.

They don't even end up doing anything, they just take their time kissing, exploring, touching. Mapping out each other's bodies with their hands until their stomachs start to growl with an altogether different sort of need.

"I should, we should-" Steve stammers, blushing in this ridiculously adorable way that has Billy wanting to bite Steve's thick, full, _ gorgeous _ bottom lip so badly his spine lights up with it, sending the most pleasurable short, sharp, tingly little shocks up and down his back to crest at the top of his neck and spill up and over his scalp.

He wants to bite Steve's lip so bad it's an almost physical, tangible _ need _ but, instead of doing that, Billy says, "Breakfast, yeah," and he smiles, safe and secure in the knowledge that they've got time. That they can spare an hour (maybe more, maybe less) for breakfast before getting back to each other.

They've got time.

They get dressed silently, sharing quiet smiles as Steve throws Billy his shirt from last night and as they both move to awkwardly shove their pants on. 

They share one more short, pleasant kiss before Billy yanks open the bedroom door and they tumble out into the hallway.

They find Robin sitting on the couch in the living room, reading a book and she's got her favorite, bright purple mug full of coffee that looks like it's probably gone cold sitting next to an empty bright blue plate with what looks like toast crumbs on it on top of the coffee table that she's pulled so close to the couch Billy wonders how she'll get up. 

Not that she looks like she's planning on getting up any time soon, what with how absorbed into her book she is.

Trying to be nice, Billy swoops forward and steals her mug and her plate off of the table. It's something Robin doesn't notice until Steve starts laughing and even then she startles, dropping her book into her lap and looking alarmed until she realizes the sudden noise is just Steve laughing at her.

"Oh, whatever, jerk," she grumbles as she grabs her book out of her lap to dive right back in without so much as a "Good morning" to either of them. 

"Oh, calling me a jerk, huh? Well, see if I do anything nice for you like cleaning up your plates ever again," Billy says teasingly as he heads towards the kitchen. 

"I meant Steve, actually, but yeah, you're a jerk too," Robin says as Billy drops her dishes into the sink. He can't see her, but he _ knows, _ he just _ knows _ even just from her tone that she's pointedly not looking at him as she says it. 

Billy shakes his head and lets the conversation dip into comfortable silence as he turns the coffee maker on. 

He's just reaching for the breakfast cereal when Steve wraps around him from behind and presses his face into his neck and Billy can't help it. He sighs and a little of the tension of last night, of the past couple of weeks, of the past couple of _ months, _ slides out of him with it, leaving him feeling more whole and more happy than he thinks he's ever been. 

"You're both disgusting," Robin says, flipping a page in her book loudly enough that it's like adding an exclamation point to her words. 

"But you love us!" Steve shoots back on instinct and god, it's good to hear Steve making jokes like he's done it a thousand times before, like he belongs here, like he belongs with them. Like this is normal, like this is natural. Like this is _ easy. _

"Yes, unfortunately, I do," Robin fires back, casual as anything and dry as the pages of the book Billy thinks she might only now be reading for show at this point.

Billy shakes his head and bites his lower lip, hands freezing up in their search for something to eat. 

"Billy?" Steve's hands wrap tighter around Billy's chest, sending warmth into Billy's skin like his hands are touching it directly rather than through the silky fabric of his shirt. 

Billy shakes his head, unable to speak. 

"Hey, come here," Steve says as he turns him around, like they're not already pressed together close enough for Billy to feel Steve's breath on his skin. 

"What's wrong?" Steve asks all soft and quiet and it has Billy swallowing and shutting his eyes. 

He feels Steve's fingers on his chin just as he hears him say, "Billy, baby, look at me," but Billy can't. He can't. The happiness that felt like a warm blanket earlier has turned to ice, is seeping into his veins and is freezing him solid. He feels his breath shudder out of his nostrils, feels his lungs freeze up in panic. 

All he can think is: this is too good to be true. 

And what if it is? 

_ What if it is? _

He thinks he feels blood smear on his face as Steve's hand slides up his cheek - he knows he can smell it. He doesn't want to open his eyes and see Steve dying in front of him. He can't take it. He can't. 

He can't. 

He can't. 

He can't.

_ He can't. _

"Billy!" Steve yells and Billy can hear the undercurrent of panic rising just behind the command in his tone. "Open your eyes. Please." Steve's hand on his cheek is trembling. Steve's afraid. Steve's in pain and - 

Steve's in pain and - 

And -

Billy should -

Billy should -

There's a noise that sounds like a book slamming shut and footsteps echoing across the linoleum floor of the kitchen before slender fingers are wrapping around Billy's bicep and dragging him away, away from Steve, away from - 

He squeezes his eyes shut tighter. He can't bear to look. He can't. Just thinking about it is bad enough.

Steve's blood on his face. 

Steve's blood on his hands. 

Steve's dying and it's all his fault, all his fault, all his fault, all his - 

"Billy!" Steve shouts, loud and insistent. Loud and insistent and _ right there. _

And still, Billy can't look at him. He shakes his head. He knows it isn't true, he knows it doesn't change anything, but buried somewhere deep inside him is a little voice, a childish voice, and it's telling him: if you don't look, it isn't there. 

It's a trick he's used before, but not since he was a kid.

Not that it helped much then as he could still hear the yelling, even if he was hidden under his bed and couldn't see it and it doesn't help now because now he can still _ smell _ the blood, can still _ feel it _ on his _ face, _ still knows that it's _ there. _ It doesn't _ change _ anything, not looking. 

Then someone, Billy isn't sure who, breathes out and grabs his hands. 

He doesn't fight. He lets them put his hands wherever they're going to put them, lets them lead him to whatever they want because Steve is dying and this doesn't matter. Steve is dying and nothing else matters. 

The soft skin Billy's hands suddenly make contact with doesn't matter, the pulse racing under Billy's now ice-cold fingers doesn't matter. None of this matters. Steve is dying, he's been dragged away and none of this matters. 

"I'm right here," Steve says, soft and so, so close. "I'm right here." 

It takes another second before the pieces slot together in Billy's head. The skin underneath his hands is Steve's neck. The pulse he feels thrumming beneath that skin also belongs to Steve. Because Steve is… Steve is...

He's...

Billy peels his eyes open carefully and sees Steve sitting in front of him, staring at him, sees the sun pouring in through the living room window, sees the ragged green quilt on the edge of the couch they're now sitting on, sees Robin sitting on the edge of the coffee table in almost the exact same spot El had been sitting last night, the same spot, with almost the exact same sort of determination. Like she's seen this all before and she's prepared to deal with it.

Steve's okay. He's okay. They're okay. 

He doesn't say anything, just collapses forward, his head falling to rest on Steve's shoulder, breakfast forgotten, pleasant things forgotten, numb in the wake of the panic that's just clawed its way through him.

"Maybe," Steve says, voice sounding hoarse and worn. "Could you get us some cereal?" 

And Billy knows that Steve is talking to Robin but he feels ridiculous Steve even has to ask. He feels ridiculous for being like this - it's not like he's the one that died and got transported from one world to another - and he could snap himself together, he could hide his broken, fragile pieces, put on a mask and soldier on, soldier through, but…

Then Steve starts rubbing his back and pulling him close and telling him it's alright and Billy knows he doesn't have to. 

So instead of pulling his fractured pieces together, he lets them fall apart. He lets Steve wrap around him, lets Steve card his fingers through his hair, then when Robin comes over carrying three bowls nearly overflowing with that healthy shit she calls cereal, he takes the one without any milk and eats out of it with his fingers as Steve continues to run his hands through his hair. 

And Billy lets Robin sit next to him, pressed up along his side and eating her cereal with her spoon and slurping at the milk obnoxiously. He lets the silence spread out and he lets himself sink into Steve and he lets himself not say anything.

And it feels wrong. Feels undeserved, even if he did almost the exact same thing for Steve just last night, but still, regardless of that inner pushback, that inner need to say something hostile and push them both away, he lets the people he loves take care of him. 

It isn't easy. His skin practically prickles with it, a fact Steve comments on more than once in his never-ending stream-of-consciousness rambling, but the way his fingers never leave Billy's body, always touching, always soothing, always _ there _ \- he knows Steve understands. 

Steve understands and Billy _ lets him. _

\---

Hours later, though just how many, he isn't sure, Billy walks back into the kitchen to put their cereal bowls into the sink and he notices a note lying face up on the kitchen table. 

He shifts the bowls to one hand to pick up the note with the other and reads:

_ By the time I came back, you were all asleep, so I left the food I got you in the fridge. _

_ I'm glad you're all okay. Call me if you need anything. _

_ And I mean it. _ _ Anything_.

_ -Joyce _

With a grunt he sets the bowls in the sink and opens the fridge, expecting maybe burgers, but instead sees a whole large pizza, two liters of knockoff brand soda and a store-bought cake with thick white frosting with a huge chunk missing from one side.

He looks over at Robin, who has since resumed tearing through her book and says, "Just how much have you _ eaten _ today?"

She looks up at him with a perfectly arched eyebrow and glares with murderous intent. "You can't ask girls how much they ate, dweeb." 

It's only a split second before Steve's looking up from his spot on the couch and chiming in with, "Yeah, leave Robin and her stress eating alone." 

On their own, those words could be supportive, maybe. But the smile Steve is only just barely suppressing says otherwise, gives the whole thing a teasing vibe and Billy can't help it, it makes him break into a big, wide smile of his own.

Robin gives them both a look from behind the barely lowered pages of her book. "How am I even friends with either of you?" she asks, not that she sounds like she means it in the least. 

Then Steve's eyes roll up like he's just remembered the name of his favorite song and he says, "Well, you know, losers like us have to stick together." 

And Billy watches as before him Robin's heart explodes then shatters as violently as glass fireworks, the shrapnel of it flying everywhere and for a second he thinks she's about to fall apart - it's certainly her turn - but then instead she drops her book and charges across the room to tackle Steve with just the biggest hug and Billy lets himself go from smiling to crying, even if he still turns away from them to do it. 

He's about to go and wash the dishes, to find something useful to do, when Robin calls out, "What are you doing, loser? Get over here." 

And for a second, Billy hesitates, remains in his current position, facing the wall, emotions safely hidden. But then Robin calls for him again and Steve joins in and he turns around. He turns around and he lets the people he loves hug him, lets them hold him, lets them see the tear tracks and the redness on his cheeks. 

He _even_ lets Steve pick a movie for them to watch. 

And then he lets Steve cuddle him until they're both all hot and sweaty from the heat of being pressed so close together, but even then he just presses in closer still because he still just can't get enough, because he just won't ever get enough. 

There won't ever be enough of this, of having Steve right next to him, all over him, within easy touching distance and getting to touch him just as much as he wants. 

And he knows, now more than ever, that he's going to spend the whole rest of his life never being sick of touching this boy as much as he can. He's always going to be starving for it, be desperate for it. Touching Steve is something he's going to _ crave _ every day for the rest of his life.

\---

It's almost exactly the second the final credits roll that there's a knock at the door and the timing of it makes something cold turn over in Billy's gut and sink, disrupting a wave of acid that floats right up and into the back of his throat and stays there.

Then it occurs to him.

He didn't go home last night.

And Max was out late.

He's pretty sure Neil doesn't know about this place, he's _ pretty sure, _ but, then he's been _ pretty sure _ of a lot of things that ultimately wound up being terrible. There have been a lot of times he's thought, _ Oh, I'm sure it's fine. Oh, I'm sure it's nothing, _ only to later wind up with the world pressing a boot to his neck and asking him why he's never prepared, why he never sees any of it coming, why he never freaking _ learns, _ so at some point he started paying attention, at some point he started being prepared, started being on guard, started being _ ready to go. _

He's ready now - his hands clench up into fists real quick and he's ready to spring up, ready to fight whoever's at the door, whether it's Neil or somebody else. He'll fight anyone he has to, he doesn't care, he didn't before and he certainly doesn't now.

Next to him, Steve does the opposite of preparing for a fight - Steve sags against the couch, suddenly looking incredibly nervous and it cements Billy's protective instincts in place 'cause if Steve is worried, then there's probably a good reason to be. If Steve is worried, it's probably something bad. 

"Dustin," Steve says, like that's the obvious and only answer. 

"What?" Billy asks. 

A second later, Robin chimes in with her own refrain of, "What?" when Steve doesn't answer. She then leans forward from her spot on the other side of the couch to look at Billy, eyes searching his like he should have some clue what Steve's on about.

But he doesn't.

And Steve makes this dramatic, full body, absolutely all over groan and slaps his hand to his face, covering his eyes. "It's Dustin," he says. "Last night I said we were gonna talk later and today, in Dustin time, counts as later." He does the all over groan again just as there's another series of short, sharp knocks at the door. 

Billy feels his shoulders lose their tight edges and his fists unclench at his sides even as Robin scrunches up her face. 

"And talking to the dork that's basically your brother is a bad thing because?" she asks in that I'm-the-smartest-one-in-the-room-but-I-don't-get-it way of hers.

Steve levels her with a look that says she really should get out more, but he still adds to it, "Because now I have to talk to him about how I like guys," to really bring the point home. 

And Robin, in pointed response to this, gets to her feet and marches towards the door as the knocking sounds again, this time hurried and loud and clearly annoyed.

The pacing of it, the rush of it makes Billy wonder how he ever thought those knocks were coming from anybody other than Dustin. It's so obviously Dustin and the way the kid manages to paint his annoying, obnoxious little personality into every single thing he does, even just knocking on a door, Billy has to admit - he's almost a little impressed. 

Almost.

He would be. If the kid weren't, well, himself. 

The now near incessant knocking stops as the door is swiftly opened. There's a shout from Dustin of, "Hey!" and then Robin is marching back into the living room, dragging Dustin by the collar of his ugly green shirt like he doesn't want to be here, even though he sought this out himself. 

Something in the kid's stance puts Billy back on edge, though, has his hands curling back into fists.

"Deal with it!" Robin insists as she drops her hands from Dustin's shirt and then disappears off down the hall to her bedroom, leaving the three of them alone to do exactly that.

Billy wishes he could follow her but one sidelong glance at Steve tells him that's a bad idea. 

Steve's hands are shaking and gripping his knees like he's trying to break his own kneecaps and it makes Billy want to hold his hand, to offer whatever comfort he can, so he does. He grabs Steve's hand and he stares Dustin down as he does it.

Dustin crosses his scrawny arms across his scrawny chest like he thinks this what being intimidating looks like and he lowers his chin to look down at Billy. 

It's about as stupid as diving head first into oncoming traffic and it's like waving red in front of a bull and if Billy wasn't tethered to his spot on the couch by the grip of Steve's cold, sweaty hand, there's no doubt he'd be up in the kid's face right now, doing something about it.

"This guy? Really, Steve?" Dustin says, repeating something he'd said last night and that Billy is sure he's thought a thousand times since then. 

It's almost funny, really, that the kid has no idea Billy's thought the exact same thing more times than anybody could ever count. 

Billy's thought it. But he was wrong. He was wrong then and he's wrong now.

Steve sees value in him. 

Steve sees _ worth _ in him.

And this little fucking twerp doesn't get to take that away.

_ No one does. _

"Why the fuck," Billy says, words as full of intent and simmering threat as he can make them, "do you think your opinion matters so goddamn much, anyway? Like why do you think you get a say in what Steve does or doesn't do?"

Dustin makes a motion with his hand as if to say, "See?" and follows it up with, "Because that's what being friends is. That's what friends do. You stop each other from making horrible mistakes." The kid even has the nerve to look at Steve pleadingly, all imploring like he's trying to save Steve from something terrible, something bad, or more like _ someone _ terrible, someone like - 

Billy's not going to say it. He's not even going to think the name. He's not like that man and Steve knows he isn't. And Steve's opinion is the one that matters here. 

Still, Billy licks his lips and squares his shoulders, sits up as tall as he can, takes up as much space as he can and feels proud of the knowledge that it's more space, more height, more muscle than this kid will ever see. But he doesn't drop Steve's hand. He doesn't hold it tighter, either, he just lets it be. A beacon to this kid, to anyone that wants a fight, that he's not going anywhere, no matter what gets said or what gets done. As long as Steve wants him, really wants him, then this is where he'll be - by Steve's side and proud of it. 

So he stares the kid down and the kid stares back but before either of them gets the chance to say anything else, Steve says, "That's enough, Dustin."

Billy looks over and sees the change in Steve happen like a bolt of lightning hitting the ground - it's sudden and unexpected and massive and it leaves the entire landscape changed. 

"I love who I love and you're going to have to find a way to deal with that," Steve says. His hands have stopped shaking, his grip is certain and Billy feels an echoing roar of thunder in his bones to match Steve's lightning determination.

Steve is his and he isn't going anywhere and Billy knows that now more than ever. 

"But why?" Dustin says plaintively and Billy can't help but picture him as a tree in a field. One that's just begging to get struck down.

Almost instantly, Steve hits him with, "Because I just do, alright? I don't owe you an itemized list but if you can't see the value in a guy who drove to another state and spent all his money, then fought actual monsters for me armed with only his fists and his brain, I don't know that I want to bother knowing you anymore."

Billy can't help the cruel sneer that spreads on his face as he watches Dustin crack and splinter like dry wood. 

"I -" Dustin starts. His hands clench into fists at his sides. "You-" He looks like he might just cry. "Just-" 

Dustin takes a step back. "Fine." 

The kid turns and he starts walking away and Billy doesn't have to look over at Steve to know that this is wrong, no matter how much pleasure he might be getting out of it personally, no matter how appealing a life with Steve without this dork involved might be to him. 

He knows that this is wrong.

"Hold up, no," Billy says. He squeezes Steve's hand gently and watches Dustin stop mid-step, foot hovering in mid-air. Billy looks down. He doesn't want to be looking at the kid's face for what he's got to say next. "You can't just let your own _ brother _ walk out like that. It's not right." 

Billy sees the kid's feet turn around. "You think - you think we're brothers?" he says, his voice irritatingly steeped in hope.

"Not all family is blood, kid," is all Billy can think to say.

"Steve?" Dustin asks, and over earnest twerp that he is, he takes his hat off. So he's literally standing hat in hand before them. Before Steve.

Good god.

Billy hasn't looked over at Steve during all of this, but he's looking now. And Steve looks surprisingly more guarded than Billy feels, which is probably a lifetime first. 

And Steve doesn't say anything, either, he just narrows his eyes and looks away from Dustin, looks at his pants, looks at the wall, the arm of the couch, anything to not look at his own freaking brother.

Because it's true. They _are_ brothers at this point.

"Well?" Billy says, looking at Dustin dead-on, warped, fried, splintered bits and all.

Dustin looks back at him blankly and shrugs. 

"Apologize," Billy grinds out. How the hell he's wound up in the position of mediator in a fight about emotions between these two he'll never understand, but damned if he's going to come away from it with anything but a win.

"I'm sorry, Steve," Dustin says, all pitiful and sad, all pitiful and sad until he tacks on, "You can date whatever assholes you like, male or female." 

Because, right. Of course. Just when Billy was maybe starting to soften up on the kid just the tiniest bit, the kid has to go and prove him wrong and make Billy want to kill him all over again. 

Steve, however, bursts out laughing and nodding his head. He says, "There, now was that so hard?" making Billy drop his hand instantly.

"What, you're gonna just let him call me an asshole like that?" Billy shouts, insulted. 

"Well…" Steve says, voice trailing off into giggles. "If the shoe fits." 

Billy wants to throw a shoe at him right now. Maybe he even would, if he were wearing any.

But, then…

But then maybe seeing Steve smile and getting to watch him get up off the couch and hug his dorky, idiot brother isn't so bad. Maybe it's even worth the insult.

He's such a sap for Steve, he figures he'll find a way to get along with Dustin eventually.

Over Steve's shoulder, the look on Dustin's face says he feels the same way. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was intended to be the last chapter, but instead there's now an epilogue.


	18. Now you're with me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, wow, okay. I put these boys through so much and then I got so soft with this last part that I made myself cry a little bit. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did. 
> 
> And to everybody who's read this, and even more to everybody that's commented: thank you. I really, really do appreciate you. 
> 
> I've never really had any measure of success with anything before and I've never really finished anything before, so this story and that anybody followed me for it, it really means a lot to me. 
> 
> Thank you.

_ Monday, June 16th, 1986 _

  
  


There are a few weird things Steve has noticed about Billy.

They've been spending more and more time together lately, ever since the insanity of last November and it's been good. 

It's been _ great, _ actually. 

Billy's practically been living with him since he graduated and the few times Steve's parents have been home, Billy stays at Robin's. 

Billy's own parents don't know about any of this, of course. He goes back every couple of days with a duffle bag full of laundry and to check up on Max and with stories of this new job he has that requires him to stay over nights. 

And maybe they believe him.

Or maybe, much like Steve's own parents, they just don't care. 

And as for Steve's own parents themselves, well. 

They keep coming back less and less and less. Last time they left his mom didn't even need to take a suitcase, said she had enough clothes at the townhouse in Chicago to last her a while and Steve had laughed. 

When she'd asked him why he'd said it was nothing and she hadn't bothered with a follow-up question, seemed glad he hadn't told her and glad to avoid a difficult conversation. 

That was three weeks ago and since then they've called all of once for all of five minutes and that was just to remind him to do the yard work since they'd fired the gardener.

He hasn't told them about what happened in November. Hasn't told them about being queer, either and it's funny, for all that he was so worried about it, it hasn't really mattered. He's talked with everyone else he knows about it and he was even brave enough to hold Billy's hand in public once.

It was in the parking lot of Family Video just after he'd been fired and it was the middle of the night so probably not even Keith had seen them do it, but _ still. _

He'd done it and it _ counts. _

And between staying with him and staying with Robin, Billy's… Billy's been happier. 

He's happier.

But Steve has been careful (and cautious) to pick up on as many of Billy's little quirks as possible, the ones Billy would never admit to having but the ones that Steve knows he desperately needs someone to see.

Like that Billy has to be the one to lock the front door.

And that he can't stand to have the bedroom door closed, not even when he's awake. It makes him twitchy, then if left for long enough, it makes him angry, makes him get mean, then, past that - and this has only happened the once, Steve only ever let it happen the once - after he gets mean, after he's burned out, he gets silent and unmovable like a stone. And he'll sit like that for hours, just frozen, stuck, unmoveable.

So Steve doesn't close doors anymore, not unless he's going to the bathroom. 

Personally, he's been used to keeping them closed, to walling himself off, to keeping himself contained so he can forget how big and how empty and how sad the house is. How big and how empty and how sad all the walled off little parts of himself are, all the ones that he's kept hidden and all the ones that he's kept guarded and all the ones that he'd forgotten about completely with how long they'd gone unused.

But he doesn't have to do that anymore, not with Billy here. 

With Billy here the house is never quiet. With Billy here, the house is never empty. It's always full of the god awful, loud music that Billy loves that secretly, Steve is starting to love just as much, if only because he sees the way it makes Billy smile, if only for the way Billy looks with his head thrown back, eyes closed, singing along to a song he knows by heart.

With Billy here, Steve doesn't have to hide. With Billy here, there are no walled off parts of himself. With Billy here it's like he's thrown open the curtains and let the sunlight come pouring in for the first time. 

Because Billy is like the sun and Billy is like fire. Billy keeps him warm at night with his big, strong arms wrapped around him tight, keeping him safe.

Billy keeps the nightmares away more often than not and on the nights that it's not, on the nights when the walls of Steve's - now their - bedroom start to climb with thick, pulsating, stinking vines and the darkness starts peeling itself out of the corners to leech itself into Steve's skin, Billy is there with his fire, with his warmth and his light and his words, telling Steve not to be stupid, of course the monsters aren't going to get him and if they did, even if they dared to try it, they'd have one hell of a fight on their hands. 

"I got you back before," Billy has whispered in his ear more than once as he's held him close late at night, "And I'd do it again. And again and again and _ again, _ as many times as I had to until I made sure you were safe."

Billy is like the sun and Billy is like fire and Steve's never really felt this kind of warm before, so he takes care to notice the things that Billy needs, the things that Billy _ wants, _just like Billy does for him.

He tried to learn to cook…

They've _ both _ tried to learn to cook, but…

They're both terrible at it. 

They basically survive on takeout, frozen pizzas and lasagnas (which they sometimes still manage to burn anyway) and a combination of kindnesses done in the form of meals offered by Nancy and Mike's and Lucas' and Dustin's moms. 

Steve knows that someday they'll have to figure out a way to do something better, they can't survive on takeout forever, but they've got time. 

For now, he's nineteen and Billy's eighteen and all he's got to worry about is whether or not Billy's going to think the bouquet of daisies he picked up at the grocery store while picking up Billy's favorite ice cream to go along with the casserole and salad Dustin's mom gave him after dropping Dustin off is stupid.

It's probably stupid.

Billy's never been much of a romantic, not that flowers, ice cream, casserole, salad and a rented VHS tape (_Nightmare on Elm Street 2, _ Billy's favorite) are exactly what Steve would call _ romantic _ to begin with, but…

Another one of Billy's quirks?

He loves devoting all of his time and attention to Steve. He's almost obsessive with it, really. 

But sometimes he still gets bristly when Steve tries to give any of that attention back to him. Like he still thinks he doesn't _ deserve _ it, or something. 

Not that that's ever stopped Steve from trying. Not that it's ever going to. 

Because the thing Billy still doesn't seem to get, or maybe it's just something Billy tends to forget on the bad days, is that Steve's just as in this as he is. Because Billy is like the sun, because Billy brings sunlight to all the sad, forgotten, walled off parts of himself.

And okay, if Steve's being fully cheesy, if he's being fully honest, those parts? Well…

See, he mostly means his heart. 

Because he's never really loved anyone before. Not like this.

He didn't…

He'd _ meant to… _

He'd certainly _ wanted to… _

But he'd never _ really _ loved Nancy. 

Not like this.

Not really. 

And he gets that now. Nancy had been his first taste of love, his first real attempt, and he's grateful for that, he's grateful for her, but…

But…

With her it'd been more like he'd been in love with the idea of her than really being in love with her as a person. He'd never really stopped and paid attention to what _ she'd _ needed, to what _ she _ might have wanted. Not that he was selfish with her, exactly, he just, he just didn't get it. Didn't get _ her. _

He'd been so fascinated by her beauty and her brain and her determination and her ambition, he hadn't noticed anything else. He thought loving that _ about _ her was the same as _ loving _ her.

Now he knows it's not. 

Because Billy is beautiful. Billy is smart. Billy is determined and Billy is ambitious. 

But those things aren't the reasons Steve loves him.

Steve loves him because…

He loves him because…

Because of the way Billy looks at him, even when other people are looking, looks at him like he just doesn't care who knows, like he's always just on the edge of climbing onto the nearest rooftop and shouting about how much he loves Steve to the whole, entire world (or at least all of Hawkins) and like he's ready to fight any asshole who wants to come at them just because they both happen to be guys. 

Steve loves Billy because of the way their hands fit perfectly together. 

Steve loves Billy because of the smile he can't help but get almost every single morning when he wakes up and sees Billy lying next to him with his hair a complete disaster and with that little spot of drool on the pillow where he's got his face pressed into it and for the way Billy always comes to with a groan and a stretch and more often than not with a, "Mornin' pretty boy," which is then followed up by a demand for breakfast. Which Steve always insists Billy either get for himself or get for the both of them, because between the two of them, with their limited cooking skills, Steve knows how to pour cereal and Billy at the very least knows how to cook eggs.

And sometimes they argue about this and sometimes they don't, but they almost always wind up kissing and getting breakfast together before one or both of them has to go to work.

Steve loves Billy. 

Steve loves Billy because…

Because Billy is like the sun. 

Because Billy is like fire. 

Because Billy keeps him warm. 

Because Billy likes to pretend for the world that he's like the ocean during a storm, raw and powerful, unpredictable and dangerous - and sometimes he is, sometimes he is those things, but…

He's also like… what Steve imagines standing in the sand on the beach by the ocean must be like. Your feet digging into the hot sand, the sun beaming down at you, the crystal clear blue water lapping up against the shore, like you're all warm and maybe it's all a little overwhelming, but it's a _ good _ kind of overwhelming. 

Or maybe that's dumb. 

Steve doesn't know. 

It's not like he's ever actually been to the ocean.

He doesn't _ know. _

But he does know he loves Billy. 

And he's gonna prove it. 

Tonight. With this stupid tape, and this stupid food and he's going to tell him that Robin got into San Francisco State and she's got her funding all sorted out so all that money they've been saving up from their stupid, shitty jobs, it's got a real purpose - they can really do it. They can really leave town. They can really go somewhere they can really be together. 

They can really and truly, actually, have a life together. 

'Cause, yeah. Maybe there aren't any truly safe places out there for them. Maybe that's true. 

But better than here is still just that - better than here. And improvement is still just that - improvement. 

But first, this dinner. First, he has to _ask._

So Steve gets home about an hour before Billy should be home from work at the garage and he gets started, pulls a fancy, glass vase out for the flowers and debates in his head for a solid minute about how that word is pronounced, if it's pronounced _ vase _ the snooty, upper-class way his mother always says it, with the emphasis on the _ a _ or if it's pronounced vase with the emphasis put on the _ s _ but pronounced like a _ c, _ like the way Robin does it, before deciding that it really doesn't matter. He likes Robin's way better, regardless of which is "right".

He puts the flowers in the vase on the table in the dining room and then moves it at least six times before deciding to just leave it in the middle of the table, the one that he hates because it's so big; the one he feels like he can barely even see Billy across, let alone reach out and touch him across. 

Which is probably why they never eat in here, addicted to touching each other as they are.

He picks up the vase, mind busy thinking of the last few cold, stilted dinners he had in this cold, stilted room with his cold, stilted parents and he's so distracted by this that the vase slips from his hand and shatters all over the floor, scratching the dark hardwood all up.

There was a time he would have gotten nervous about something like that, worried over what his parents might say when they saw it, but now he's not sure that they're ever coming back and even if they were, even if they do, he still doesn't care. 

And why _ should _ he?

He definitely doesn't plan on staying here or on getting anything from them indefinitely and with all of that, it's a lot harder to care about anything they might have to say. So now he just saves the flowers from the mess, grabs a broom and a dustpan and cleans everything up. No big deal.

That is, it's no big deal until he hears the sound of Billy's car coming up the driveway and the screechingly loud Metallica song crashing between the open windows of the car and the open windows of the house. 

He looks over at the ice cream still sitting on the counter, at the kitchen table still cluttered with their breakfast dishes, at the sink full of dishes he'd wanted to wash before Billy got back and he groans. 

So much for his big plan.

Then the music cuts off and he gulps and without really having enough time to think it through, Steve dumps the gathered glass shards of the vase into the garbage, hides the broom and stuffs the flowers into the big, ugly mug Billy was using for his coffee this morning, the one Max had gotten him at the high school's end of the year fair in May, even though the flowers don't remotely fit. They're much too tall. 

Steve can hear the front door sliding open, the bottom dragging across the rug just in front of it like it always does and he glances over at the ceramic casserole dish sitting on top of the stove that he never quite got to putting in the oven and at the salad and the homemade ranch dressing sitting unmixed next to it that he never got to doing anything with, either and he bites down on his tongue.

It had been such a good plan before it all got shot to hell.

This is how Billy finds him, holding a mug with daisies in it, annoyed and staring at a casserole dish. 

"Uh," Billy says, clearly trying not to laugh. "Babe? What are you doing?" 

Steve shakes his head, opens his mouth, shuts it, then tries again. "You're home early," is all he manages to say.

"Yeah, it was a slow day so I got off early," Billy says as he crosses the room to the stove.

Without even washing his hands, he hops up on the counter and strips the plastic wrap from the top of the bowl with the ranch dressing in it and sticks one long, fat finger in, which he then raises to his lips and sucks clean obscenely because he's Billy and much as Steve loves him completely, heart and soul, sometimes, Billy is disgusting. 

"Dustin's mom always makes the best shit. Like who even makes their own salad dressing?" Billy says then pauses, eyes half closed as he sticks his finger in again and sucks on it like this is some kind of wild, new sex act or something. 

"You know, I don't think Dustin fully appreciates her." He does the whole thing again only this time he adds _ noises _ to it before opening his eyes and looking back at Steve. 

"You want some?" He holds his finger out like he fully expects Steve to come rushing at him and just stick his big, dirty fingers in his mouth. 

And Steve kind of hates that he actually _ does _ want to, that Billy has turned him into somebody that _ wants that _ but he covers up for it by saying, "No. It's supposed to go on the salad, you dick."

Billy licks his finger clean quick this time before pointing at the flowers. "Okay, what's going on? You're being…" He trails off and Steve can practically hear him say "weird" even if he doesn't actually _ say _ it. 

So Steve puts the flowers down on the counter behind him and walks over to Billy. Billy eyes him up but doesn't say anything, just watches as Steve sticks his own finger in the dressing and licks it clean.

And Billy was _ right. _ This dressing is _ delicious. _ (And no, Dustin doesn't remotely, not even a little bit, appreciate the absolute domestic goddess of a mother he's been gifted with. He gets to eat stuff like this every day, three times a day, and he doesn't even _ notice _half the time, just complains about how their whole house smells like potpourri and has cat stuff everywhere.)

And suddenly Steve notices Billy looking at him like he's been silent way too long so he says, "I had this whole thing planned out," all embarrassed because yeah, he _ did._

Billy watches and says nothing as Steve sticks his finger in the dressing again, looking like he wants to lick it off himself. Steve debates letting him do it, too, but instead he says, "Robin got a call today. She got her funding all sorted out." 

"Yeah?" Billy says, hypnotized by Steve's finger hovering over the bowl. "Good for her." 

"Oh, god," Steve half says, half laughs. He sticks his finger in his mouth unceremoniously, swallows hastily and sticks his hands behind his back. "No, see, I - " He looks over at the flowers and rolls his eyes and groans.

He walks off into the entryway and Billy follows without asking. He grabs the tape of _ Nightmare 2 _that he'd left sitting on the staircase and he holds it out to Billy. "See, I got your favorite tape, I got flowers, I got food…" 

Billy looks like he's fighting off a smile. "Okay, why? It's not my birthday…" Billy takes a step towards him and pulls the tape out of his hand.

"And I'm pretty sure this isn't how you'd behave if someone died…" Billy throws the tape over his shoulder and it lands with a loud '_thunk' _as it bounces off the floor and hits the wall. 

"And I'm thinking this isn't just about celebrating Robin's good news…" Billy steps forward again so there's only maybe a few inches between them now and his smile, the beautiful, natural, happy one, the one he's been wearing more and more often lately, breaks free. He grabs both of Steve's hands with both of his and raises them above his head. 

"I was going to ask you to move to San Francisco with me, like we could go with Robin in September," Steve says. He can feel the blush spreading on his face and winding down around his neck, he can feel the way Billy's hands tighten their grip on his own and he can feel himself holding his breath as he waits for Billy's answer. 

Billy drags him in close, then closer, his hands still held above his head and Billy places this ridiculously soft, ridiculously sweet kiss right in the space between his shoulder and his neck. Billy's hair is tickling his cheek and Billy says, "So ask me, then, pretty boy."

Steve takes a deep breath and shuts his eyes and imagines punching his words out of his throat, imagines getting them unstuck by force. "Billy, do you wanna move to San Francisco with me in September?" 

Billy pulls back just enough to look Steve in the eye as he says, "Oh, come on, you know I'd follow you absolutely anywhere." 

He drops Steve's hands, lets them fall to his sides, but only so he can wrap his arms around him and hold him tight, to press up against him with every inch and engulf Steve's body with his own even though they're basically the same height. 

"So that's a yes, then?" Steve asks, his heart kicking off and erupting like a solar flare in his chest, sending shockwave after shockwave of cascading heat through his veins. 

He knows it's a yes, even before Billy says, "That's a wild horses couldn't drag me away, the motherfucking monsters in this motherfucking town couldn't _ keep _ me away, absolutely nobody on this entire goddamn _ planet _ could ever keep me away, absolutely, one hundred percent, _ hell yes _ I want to go back to my favorite state with my favorite boy." But hearing him say it? Hearing him put into words just how much and how fiercely he loves him? 

It's…

Well. It's something else. It makes him speechless. It makes him unable to do anything other than wrap his hands in Billy's hair and kiss him senseless.

Because this isn't at all like Steve had planned it, not this night, not the past couple of months, not any of it, not at all. 

If he'd been asked before the fourth of July last year, back before any of this, Steve would have said that Billy Hargrove was the last person he'd ever have thought he'd ever end up with, even if he'd been able to get past the whole gender part of the question. 

Now he can't imagine ever loving anybody else.

  
  


_ I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, _

_ or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. _

_ I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, _

_ in secret, between the shadow and the soul. _

_ -from "xvii (I do not love you…)" by Pablo Neruda_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm asking one last time. If you enjoyed this, please leave a comment. 
> 
> It really does mean the world to me. 
> 
> Thank you.
> 
> [Oh. And I have a tumblr. :) ](https://gideongrace.tumblr.com/)


	19. Extra chapter: the playlist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured I'd put in an extra chapter with the playlist for anybody who doesn't have spotify or youtube music or in case someday the links to the playlist in those places dies. :)

_ **As certain dark things are to be loved playlist:** _

_You're Only Human (Second Wind) - Billy Joel (ch. 1)_

_When Doves Cry - Prince (ch. 1)_

_Make It Real - Scorpions (ch. 2)_

_Don't You Forget About Me - Simple Minds (ch. 2)_

_Is This Love? - Whitesnake (ch. 3)_

_Highway to Hell - AC/DC (ch. 3)_

_One More Night - Phil Collins (ch. 3)_

_Take Me With U - Prince (ch. 4)_

_Don't Come Around Here No More - Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers (ch. 5)_

_If It Be Your Will - Leonard Cohen (ch. 6)_

_The Edge of Heaven - Wham! (ch. 6)_

_Crazy For You - Madonna (ch. 6)_

_Remember Tomorrow - Iron Maiden (ch. 6)_

_Save Your Souls - Motley Crue (ch. 6)_

_The Blood - The Cure (ch. 6)_

_This Glass House - Christian Death (ch. 6)_

_Sure Know Something - KISS (ch. 7)_

_Thunderbird - Quiet Riot (ch. 8)_

_Head Over Heels - Tears For Fears (ch. 8)_

_Love's A Bitch - Quiet Riot (ch. 9)_

_The Boy With The Thorn In His Side - The Smiths (ch. 10)_

_Screaming In The Night - Krokus (ch. 10)_

_Nightmare - Mercyful Fate (ch. 11)_

_Jump In The Fire - Metallica (ch. 11)_

_Still Loving You - Scorpions (ch. 11)_

_Alone Again - Dokken (ch. 12)_

_Lady Starlight - Scorpions (ch. 13)_

_Don't Wanna Let You Go - Quiet Riot (ch. 14)_

_United - Judas Priest (ch. 15)_

_Last Rites/Loved To Deth - Megadeth (ch. 16)_

_Running Town - Siouxsie And The Banshees (ch. 16)_

_To One Far Away - Mercyful Fate (ch. 17)_

_Rock You - Helix (ch. 18)_

_Alive And Kicking - Simple Minds (ch. 18)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here are the playlists again.
> 
> [On Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6dVCJauHlrAYIjOaMFBbXi?si=c5AjV2TaSt-SJ7xnBOBENw) and [ on Youtube.](https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5F8vfeOWeSOcOzD0LL3om3mB_u2uyxu2)


End file.
